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Home / Washington Business - November/December 2006 / Travel Washington - Whidbey Island: Idyllic island paradise just a ferry ride away from the city |
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Travel Washington - Whidbey Island: Idyllic island paradise just a ferry ride away from the city |
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Written On: November/December 2006 |
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Written By: by Ron Dalby |
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If you’re visiting Whidbey Island for the first time, skip the ferries from Port Townsend and Mukilteo and drive over. Just north of Mount Vernon, take the State Route 20 exit from Interstate 5 and head west. The road takes you first to Fidalgo Island and then, spectacularly, on to Whidbey Island. You’ll never forget your first sight of the bridge over Deception Pass that connects Fidalgo Island to Whidbey Island. It is truly one of the grandest sights in Washington.
Make the view even better by pulling off at one of the nearby turnouts and walk across the bridge. If you’re lucky, the tide will be surging through the pass below the bridge and you’ll get to see an impressive display of the ocean’s power.
Captain George Vancouver and his navigator and first mate, Joseph Whidbey, are credited with naming Deception Pass in 1792. One explanation behind the name holds that both officers mistook Whidbey Island for a peninsula, and named the passage Deception Pass for the way the island had deceived them. The second explanation is that, due to the strong current during the tide change, they mistook the narrow waterway for a river, believing they had stumbled across the fabled Northwest Passage. Because of the current’s deceptive nature, Deception Pass was so named.
Besides being the name of the channel between the two islands, Deception Pass is also the name of the most-visited state park in Washington. Parts of the park are on both islands. You can camp, walk along miles of beach, or launch a boat to explore Puget Sound.
Oak Harbor
A few miles south of Deception Pass is the largest town on the island. About 20,000 people call Oak Harbor home. Many of them are Naval personnel stationed at nearby Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
"[The Navy] is the economic engine that drives our community." said Sande Crank-Mulkey, a staff member at the Greater Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce.
It’s easy to see what she means. Naval personnel and their families are a constant presence in the stores and parks in and around the Oak Harbor, and military aircraft coming and going from the base at all hours are so common that few people bother to look up when they zoom overhead.
Jim Lazzo, owner of M7L Loan Co., agrees that the Navy is a big part of the town’s economy, but he also adds that, "It’s become a big retirement community." He goes on to describe how retirees from California and elsewhere have been able to make a killing selling their homes in highly popular areas and move to Whidbey Island. They use half of the profit to buy a comparable home on the island and keep the remainder as a retirement nest egg.
Lazzo fits easily into both segments of the economy, though he didn’t make a killing financially when he moved here. He’s a retired Marine pilot who moved to Oak Harbor from California some 30 years ago. His business is one of the oldest ones on Pioneer Way, which is the heart of the old downtown area.
Lazzo has only to look out the window of his shop to see big changes in the town. "They’re trying to make the downtown into a sophisticated shopping area," he said. To some extent, he’s describing one of the newest downtown businesses, which opened earlier this year next to his pawn shop. Today’s Dog is an upscale pet boutique that advertises, "Unique accessories for dogs and cats."
Most of the impetus for the change in downtown Oak Harbor likely comes from the arrival of the "big-box" stores in the last couple of decades. Building large facilities on the southwest corner of town, stores like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Home Depot and others have pulled shoppers away from downtown. The trend in upscale stores downtown may be an effort to lure tourists, among others, into the heart of the old town.
Coupeville
Though Oak Harbor is by far the largest community on Whidbey Island, the oldest town on the island — and the county seat for Island County — is Coupeville, established in 1853.
The history of Coupeville relates almost exclusively to the sea. Established by Captain Thomas Coupe and his wife, Maria, the town was originally a thriving shipping port for wool, lumber, grain and apples. Part of that history can be felt by walking out on the wharf, which is the oldest surviving wharf in Puget Sound. Once on the wharf, turn back and look at the town. More than 50 of the buildings in view are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Walking back into town, visiting the museum should be high on your list of priorities, as well as ambling along both sides of Front Street investigating the various galleries and shops that cater to visitors. There’s a bit of history in virtually every building you enter, and most of the shopkeepers are more than happy to share it with you.
When asked, locals will probably direct you to one of the waterfront restaurants for lunch: either Toby’s, which is at least a century old, or the Mad Crab. Both offer excellent local seafoods and other dishes. Toby’s, though, puts you right in the middle of the island’s history when you belly up to the bar.
According to the history on the wall, the bar at Toby’s most likely came around Cape Horn in the late 1800s. Around 1900 it was the bar in the officer’s club at Fort Casey, just a short distance away. From there, it wound up in the Central Hotel in the early 1940s, was saved from a fire, and was finally moved to its present location.
Fort Casey
Admiralty Inlet, on the west side of Whidbey Island, was considered the only route into Puget Sound for large naval vessels in the 1800s, so a battalion of coastal artillery was installed next to the existing Admiralty Head lighthouse before the turn of the century. Fort Casey was perfectly situated to control the entrance and egress of Puget Sound shipping. Today, the old fort is a state park and examples of some of the artillery pieces are on display. Access to the lighthouse, which is no longer used, is free.
In the early days of World War II, when the powerful Imperial Japanese Navy was believed to be a threat to Puget Sound, another artillery base was created northwest of Fort Casey at Fort Ebey, near Point Partridge. Together with a mainland artillery battery near Port Townsend, these bases offered virtually complete control of the water access route to the major cities along Prince William Sound.
The ferry system
While driving onto Whidbey Island via Deception Pass makes for a great adventure, departing by ferry makes for another. Two ferry routes serve the area: Near the southern tip of the island you can board at Clinton for a short trip to Mukilteo, or at the edge of Fort Casey you can embark on a slightly longer trip to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.
For many islanders, the Mukilteo ferry is an essential part of the local economy. Washington’s ferry system allows residents to commute to Seattle for work, making it possible to live on an idyllic island in Puget Sound and hold down a job in the big city. Talk about having the best of both worlds!
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