— from Joe Symons —

Someone seeking refuge is a refugee. My dictionary defines refuge as a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. A refuge is also something providing shelter: the family came to be seen as a refuge from a harsh world.

Prior to 1970, one might imagine that those who chose to live in the islands of the Salish Sea (most of which now are called “San Juan County”) did so because of the easy availability of land and work. Few moved and worked here to escape oppression; there was fishing, forestry, fruit, and other resource-based work to make a sustainable living. The Census began tallying the population here in 1870; since then, for 100 years, the population barely changed—it was always less than 4000 for the entire county.

Beginning in 1970, the growth in the population of these islands earned—for 40 years—the distinction of being the fastest growing county in the state. Since 1970, the population of the county has more than quadrupled.

Who came? and why?

I’d argue that those who came, including me (who first stepped on Orcas in 1968 and bought property here in 1972), are refugees. We might not feel comfortable using that term, especially in light of the growing and enormously challenging international refugee crises popping up like measles all over the world. If we are refugees, then, as my mother would have said, “We’re going to the refugee camp first class”.

The Titanic might serve as a metaphor for this migration, because migration it is. Our growth rate was not and is not due to the net balance of the birth rate over the death rate. The Titanic carried people from one world to the other, though due to unconscionable hubris the “world” that many migrated to was the one following death. Of course that was not the intention of the passengers and surely even the deranged captain. The Titanic, like most cruise ships, had different levels and layers of passengers, from those who had bunks near the engine room to those who had every possible amenity.

So it has been that the migration into these beautiful islands has had different economic passengers, at least during the first decade or two of this Trip to the New World. Logging, fishing, and fruit, all local resource-based activities, gave way to tourism and construction. A great deal of that construction was for second (or more) homes. The local economy responded to this migration as bees respond to flowers: More restaurants, more kayak and whale watching tour services, more retail (read: tourist) shoppes. Along with that growth came associated infrastructure services: water, sewer, power, phone, county government, schools, medical, entertainment.

That’s the standard story. But, like the decades old Wendy’s ad, where’s the beef? Who came and why?

Who came is easy: for the most part they were, and are, refugees. Why they came is also easy: they either were willing to downgrade their living standard in order to fulfill their refugee (remember: they are/were seeking refuge) yearning or they had the funds to become a first class refugee. In the last couple of decades, the refugee entrance requirements have gone up. We’ve always had the lowest wage rate of any county in the state. No one came here for jobs or to get rich. It was tough to be a migrant in the 70s if you didn’t come with at least some money. The bar has been rising ever since.

Refugees? From what? Recall that a refuge is a place that is safe, that is sheltered from danger and trouble. If there is danger and trouble, and you don’t like it and you have either the money or the tenacity to migrate, you move. America has no resistance to wanderers. We’ve been migrating since Daniel Boone and Fredrick Jackson Turner. Perhaps it is “the pursuit of happiness,” although I suspect that migration here in the islands is for shelter, for a sanctuary, for a place that is NOT in perpetual, accelerating, disruptive motion.

The Growth Management Act was passed by the state Legislature in 1990 because so many people were migrating into Washington that the chaos level of providing infrastructure was simply too high. But why were those people then—and now—moving into Western Washington? Almost none of them moved to central or eastern Washington.

They were seeking shelter. They were tired of the challenges of urban growth in other parts of America (as you know, principally California) and wanted something calmer, more refreshing, simpler, more beautiful. Back then, Seattle was pretty attractive. Bellevue was slightly more than a hamlet. Microsoft didn’t get started until 1979.

As people and money flowed into the Puget Sound region, what was relatively calm and serene (think Garrison Keilor’s “Lake Wobegon: the town that time forgot”) changed. For those who stumbled across the San Juans then (and now), the apparent simplicity and beauty and small scale and island nature manifested like a perfect combination, a perfect storm of convergence that animated the psyches of at least two of the passenger classes: those without money but with dreams, and those with money who wanted at least an occasional piece of the sanctuary refreshment. Those without money have basically always been in servitude to those with money: building and servicing their homes, serving them food, repairing their cars, and for some of those who had the ability and desire to move here full time, teaching their kids.

Hands down this is a sweet place, so far, to raise your kids and be a member of the community. Basically anyone who chooses to live here, however they do it, has a sense of having arrived, even if not via first class.

The question is: how do we preserve the sanctuary? At some point as more refugees enter this sanctuary, the quality of the shelter degrades. Those who live here full time have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to manage the sanctuary. Were this a monastery, they’d be the monks. Were this a park, they’d be the rangers. Were this an actual refugee camp, they’d be the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We don’t have to look far to see the impact of actual (not first class) refugees pouring out of troubled areas in Africa and the Middle East into Europe trying to get to shelter from pursuit, danger, or trouble.

But it’s not a monastery, a park or a refugee camp. It’s a county. Those who live here are voters as well as taxpayers. They can manage the sanctuary, but only if they speak up.

Bob Dylan captured the feeling of waiting too long, a regret, in one of his most famous songs. Here’s the last stanza:

Well I’m living in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
“Come in,” she said,
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

It takes work, wisdom, attention, and action to maintain and preserve the refuge. My guess is that at heart, the vast majority of those full time residents reading these words recognize the deep calling that brought them and keeps them here. That calling is to and from your soul.

You have arrived. You don’t want to migrate again. Share your story of discovery and redemption. Speak to save the magic for your loved ones, your community, and the ones to follow.

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