Life on Orcas Island

Orcas Island is one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State, accessible only by ferry or small aircraft. It is about 57 square miles and the population fluctuates between 4,000 and 7,000 depending on the season. Life here is a storybook experience, removed from the busyness of the mainland. Thick, forested precipices hover over the Salish Sea below, and artists, craftspeople, sailors, pilots, entrepreneurs, dreamers, and thinkers abound. Residents live a slower-paced, community-oriented life, and people take time to stop on the street to talk to one another for extended, meaningful conversations. Talents blossom to fill needed niches, individuality is enjoyed, and conformity is put away. Summer here is bright, warm, and external - a time for jumping off docks into sun-warmed lakes and paddling around sparkling inlets. Winter is dark, rainy, and internal - a time for molding clay and writing plays. An isolated serenity permeates this place as loons sing across the Sound, sheep baa in the distance, and newts squiggle under black ponds. This book is a chronicling of the people, the gatherings, and the unique experiences that make life here so uncommonly remarkable.

Edee Kulper grew up in Dallas, Texas, and Cambria, California. She has a degree in Cultural Anthropology from UC Santa Barbara, and has lived on Orcas Island with her husband and their two children since 2012. Edee has been a newspaper photographer, a magazine research editor, a wedding photographer, a kayak rolling instructor, a Backroads bike tour leader, a Kern River rafting guide, a ski lift operator, an alternative energy researcher, a finalist for Jeopardy's Clue Crew, a chocolate expert's assistant, a radio show interviewer, a local TV show creator and host, and a homeschooling mom. She has collected core samples at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, kayaked Kauai's Na Pali Coast, jeeped across Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, rafted Chile's Biobío and Futaleufú Rivers, backpacked in Patagonia, photographed a Kenyan orphanage, swum the Cook Islands' waters, walked Italy's scenic towns, and experienced life in remote Fijian island villages. She loves life and learning people's stories, and is always up for the next big adventure.