The San Juan Islands Ecosystems: The Woods Are Alive — And So Are the Meadows and Beaches

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Beach, forest, wetland, meadow — in some places the various San Juan Islands ecosystems coexist just steps from one another. An afternoon’s walk can take you past woodsy kinickinick, sun-loving oxeye daisies, and salty pickle grass wafting in the tide.

These photos were all taken last summer during the second week of July in the space of a few acres, so they represent but one small slice of what goes on flora-wise on the San Juans — and just a hint of what planet Earth will do, left to her own devices.

I don’t know if there’s a God out there, but it seems to me that we live in a miraculous world — on a few small acres in the Pacific Northwest, so much desire, so much effort, so much complexity unfolding.

More San Juan Islands thoughts and photos at “A Patch of Fireweed in the Northwest” and “San Juan Islands Flora: Or, I Cling, Therefore I Am.”