Stuart Island (Washington)

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Stuart Island is located in the San Juan Islands of Washington state, USA, north of San Juan Island and west of Waldron Island. The 7.462 km² (2.881 sq mi) island is home to two distinct communities of full and part-time residents, a one-room schoolhouse (closed by fall of 2007 due to lack of students), and two airstrips. Stuart Island State Park has two areas, one located near the center of the island, which is roadless and divides the island in two, such that residents living on one side of the park must walk through it, or take a boat, to get to the other side of the island, and another area on the western coast of the island. The 2000 census reported a population of 800 permanent residents.

Stuart Island was named by Charles Wilkes during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838-1842, to honor Frederick D. Stuart, the captain's clerk of the expedition.^[1]

The northwest tip of the island, Turn Point, has a lighthouse to guide shipping in the busy waters of Boundary Pass to the island's north.

Satellite Island, which lies in Prevost Harbor on the northeast side of the island, is used by YMCA Camp Orkila as a basecamp for teen expeditions and for field trips by campers.

The lighthouse and nearby Lovers Leap (locally Suicide Cliff) are popular hiking destinations accessible by county road. Sheltered anchorages for boaters can be found in Reid Harbor and Prevost Harbor, with public state park facilities in each.

There are no stores or other public commercial establishments on the island, aside from the locally famous Treasure Chest. This is a wooden box, stocked by a local family with printed T-shirts and other souvenir items; each shirt comes with an envelope through which visitors are expected to return payment by mail, based on an honor system.

Stuart Island is also home to a renewable energy effort called the Stuart Island Energy Initiative. This initiative has designed a complete system that begins with photovoltaic cells that feed electrolysers, which in turn allow hydrogen to be stored for later use by fuel cells to supply electricity. ^[2]