Island Life: Camano’s shifting sands

If herons, eagles or whales brightened the view of Camano Island when I was in high school, they never found their way into my recollection.

I remember the perfect burger, crisp fries and Coke with just the right amount of ice served at Ovenell’s Drive-In, east of the island’s gateway bridge in Stanwood. There was fresh-cut hay, golden in sunset, and the acrid smell of peas processed at Twin City Foods.

I remember crossing the island too fast in a friend’s convertible, no seat belts, no worries, all of us with long, straight hair and faded Levi’s. By August, Jean’s feet were toughened from going barefoot on the sand, seaweed and shells outside her family’s home on Sunrise Beach. Years later, when trekking in Nepal, I saw the porters’ bare feet scampering up stones and had an instant vision of Jean’s tan foot pushed to the gas pedal.

Yet every time I come here I am reminded as much by what is still here as what is gone. There are 52 miles of unbelievable shoreline. Sunsets with the far-reach feel of an Alaska cruise.

Bicycling around the 40 square miles of Camano is as good as revolving in the Space Needle.

All of this came back to me recently as I stood on the bluff of an artist’s home and looked out at what surely is a million-dollar view of Saratoga Passage that separates Camano from its Island County sibling, Whidbey.

JIMI LOTT / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 2003 An island artist compares her painting against the scene she is rendering with watercolors. She was part of a Roaming Artists gathering on Camano Island in 2003.

Like all of life, Camano Island has become more complicated. From 1990 to 2000, the population here grew by more than 80 percent. It’s still rising. There are condos going in today east of Stanwood that look out on a shopping mall — country living circa 2005. And today’s “drive-in” is a fresh-roasted coffee stand at the new Camano Commons at Terry’s Corner.

Through the towering Douglas firs, you see glimpses of the Cascade and Olympic mountains as you go by the waterways of Skagit Bay to the north, Port Susan Bay to the east and Saratoga Passage on the west.

The Pacific Flyway goes right over Camano Island, as it no doubt did when I was young, but all we saw were boys. If you get a sense that someone’s watching you, look up. There’s likely an eagle looking down.

Camano Island is roughly 55 miles from Seattle — less than an hour away when I first started driving, and now sometimes 30 minutes more. Yet, with only a couple dozen businesses on the island and a converse view of time and space, the commute seems increasingly doable. It takes the average resident 43 minutes to get to work. (Without e-commerce and the hundreds of artists who toil here, it would be worse.)

I once got an insider’s view of the old fishing cabins at Cama Beach, and with it a glimpse of the turning colors of collars on Camano Island.

First there were the tribal families, who snacked on shellfish. Then there were the loggers and fishermen. By 1934, when Cama Beach resort was built, families of modest means could get away to a waterfront cabin and a fleet of boats for $1 a night.

Cama Beach, now owned by Washington State Parks, closed in 1989, but will be reopened all polished up in 2006 (seven years off the initial goal due in part to new regulations).

Once there were 15 fishing resorts on the island. They closed as post World War II families became prosperous enough to buy their own cabins, which is when the blue-collar parents of my friends bought beachfront property.

The house prices are up with the birds now, and the drive-in has gone to sleep with the fishes, which leads me to one other lament:

They make you drive with your shoes on now. What kind of island living is that?

Sherry Stripling: sstripling@seattletimes.com