2020 | The year we found our inner island

||| BY LIN MCNULTY, theORCASONIAN EDITOR |||

One of our first real news stories of 2020 was the good news that Deer Harbor Yacht Club was an official entity. That means they are now celebrating their first anniversary. That’s good news! We’ll see if the rest of the year’s wrap-up has any good news in it.

We experienced cold winter weather the first part of January 2020, along with high winds, snow and wind chill. A cold weather shelter opened up at Orcas Community Church for a few days to provide refuge  for those who were in need.

The new Port Commission experienced a few fits and starts with its new slate of officers, but Chair Mia Kartiganer eventually figured it out and the Port went on to  have a relatively non-controversial year. Orcas Islander Cindy Wolf announced her candidacy for San Juan County Council, running against incumbent Rick Hughes. Wolf went on to win the election, along with San Juan Islander Christine Minney  in November.

Remember Karl Kruger, the Orcas Island paddler who was set to conquer the NW Passage? COVID happened. The voyage is only delayed, however, not cancelled, as he still plans his excursion.

As of January 21, 2020, the Olga Store became community-owned.

On Feb. 1, 2020, at 12:52 p.m., we published our first  Coronavirus story, alerting the community that the first Coronavirus patient in the U.S. was in Washington state and had died of the disease. And on Feb. 26, we met our new best friend, Brendan Cowan, San Juan County’s emergency manager who throughout 2020 kept us apprised on the COVID-19 virus. Initially  the staff was somewhat apologetic in their assessment, wary of being over-reactive: “At this point, we may risk being accused of sowing even more fear. But there’s also a risk of being too late and missing a critical opportunity to prepare. We’d rather be guilty of overplaying something that turns out less serious than the other way around. We’re confident that this situation won’t be as bad as our darkest fears are telling us, it rarely is. We also don’t want to put our heads in the sand.” They needn’t have fretted; it was as bad as their fears were telling them. It was officially declared  a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Mar. 11, 2020.

In April the COVID pandemic hit home with the Lum family sharing their experience with the virus.

As we watched the country split into factions and take to the streets, not just with the virus but with practically every conceivable topic, including police violence against Black people, we began to look inward, finding solace, perhaps, that we live on an island and for the most part, we seemed immune as we watched from afar as the country became fractured. The politics of the current administration seemed increasingly out of control, even after the November election in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won a resounding victory. We trust this will work its way out and that we shall have a new administration on Jan. 20. There is no way I would want to be in their shoes as they set to right the wrongs have been put in place by the outgoing president. What a monumental task!

Our comments section took off in some unforeseen directions as the national politics seemed to prompt us to be divisive, a shocking interruption to our normally cooperative, peaceful, respectful island community. At the same time, many of us chose to find our Inner Island, the love-of-place that unites us. Remember our Tuning Out the Pandemic feature with local musicians providing some tunes to get through the day, or our Pandemic Poetry?

Somewhere in the midst of chaos, we thought it would be a good idea for a new name, theOrcasonian, and a redesign of our website. It might not have been the best timing for such a venture, but somehow it worked out, funded by a government stimulus payment. As we move forward at theOrcasonian, we hope to soon be adding a classified section to our website, provided, again, that there is another stimulus check coming.

In trying to look forward, the arrival of vaccines promises to eventually get us out of this pandemic and we can perhaps look forward to uniting, maskless, in the way we used to. With visible smiles for each other.

One of the things I kept saying to myself during this time: And in the midst of it all, Island Market was in a gigantic remodel, and successfully pulled it off. That right there, is so “island.”