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Some things never change – like the excitement when a Roberts-built boat is launched in La Conner. And for a few fleeting moments last Friday at La Conner Marina and on Swinomish Channel it was 1960 again as a classic 27-foot Roberts Express Cruiser was the center of attention while being lowered into the water. Its launching captured the imagination of onlookers gathered at La Conner Maritime Service. And for good reason. Salvaged 15 years ago from a dry storage marina on the Snohomish River a...
A state-managed program to help prevent vessels from becoming derelict or abandoned in Puget Sound waterways and along sensitive shoreline areas was unveiled in La Conner last Thursday. By all accounts it was a smashing success. Partners engaged in the free vessel turn-in and recycle day event gathered at the Port of Skagit's La Conner Marina for a 90-minute program including a demonstration dismantling a boats no longer in service and which otherwise could pose threats to the state's marine...
Not all roads lead to La Conner, but enough do to support the full fleet of vintage cars, trucks and trailered boats that rolled into town last Saturday. There were over 125 entries in the 24th annual La Conner Classic Boat and Car Show in the La Conner Marina's south basin parking lot, drawing throngs of admirers on a picture postcard bright sunny summer day. Conditions were ideal for folks to merge onto Memory Lane and listen to golden oldies over the event's outdoor sound system while time...
TOWN OF LA CONNER NOTICE OF APPLICATION/NOTICE OF HEARING PRELIMINARY MITIGATED DETERMINATION OF NON-SIGNIFICANCE (PMDNS) Date: September 12, 2023 Application File #: LU23-30CU-IV, LU23-31SEPA Applicant: La Conner Maritime Services Owner: Port of Skagit Town Contact Person: Michael Davolio AICP, Planning Director; P.O. Box 400, La Conner, WA 98257; 360-466-3125 Project Description: New 8,000 sq ft pre-engineered metal building for maintenance and repair of boats. The project is in an area identified as 100 year flood plain. The parcel is...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Swinomish Indian Tribal Community took filling in the gaps to a new level at the aging McGlinn-to-Goat Island rock jetty south of La Conner. The M/V SeaHorse was contracted for just over two weeks in late May and early June to remove fill material several times a day from a loading area north of the jetty to the work site to plug gaps impacting spring outbound salmon runs. The emergency repairs, designed to reduce Skagit River flow velocities through the jetty, were completed June 9. The work involved...
Few people knew La Conner history as well as the late Thomas Robinson. Thanks to his exhaustive research and the editing magic of Carl Molesworth, the town's early development is between a book's covers. Robinson's voluminous manuscript, "Steamboat Town," which Molesworth, John Kamb, Jr. and other members of the Skagit County Historical Society's publications committee have pored over for about a decade, was launched in book form last Thursday. Kamb moderated the informal evening program at the...
Because Jean Markert has always enjoyed reading and books, the next chapter in her career could not have been better scripted. Markert, previously an instructor at Skagit Valley College and manager of the Northwest Workforce Council, has been named the new director of the La Conner-Swinomish Library set to open on Morris Street in mid-October. The La Conner resident had served for just over a month as interim library director. That interim label is now lifted from Markert's job title, library bo...
La Conner Maritime Service is a second generation La Conner family owned and operated business providing marine services since 1992. We employ about 30 individuals in living wage jobs. Several of those individuals, including myself, call La Conner home. I consider it a great privilege to work and live in such a beautiful area. Over the years our business has grown and attracted new clientele to the area, many with larger boats. With this growth we’ve realized a need for indoor space to accommodate larger boats and maintain year-round work f...
Even the smallest of fires have the potential to stir up some trouble. A La Conner Maritime Service crew member noticed smoke coming from a sailboat at the end of J-dock in the La Conner Marina about 12:10 p.m. last Wednesday, March 2. He alerted Project Manager Joe Franett via radio to call the marina and 911. As other crew members alerted each other of flames coming from the boat’s aft cabin, Franett grabbed a fire extinguisher and launched a skiff with two other staff. They arrived on s...
I am sure a marketing “icon” in Gilkey Square was proposed for the best of reasons, but it strikes me as wrong-headed in a number of ways: Goal. It’s been suggested to me that the icon will provide a great place for visitor photo ops. If that’s the goal, the icon will probably achieve it, at considerable expense. But if the goal is to attract more visitors and more return visitors, I don’t see how it does that. I don’t see people saying, “Hey, let’s run up to La Conner and get some pics with that icon thing!” It is just not an attraction in...
Mavrik Marine’s new building on Pearle Jensen Way is complete. Already the aluminum boat manufacturer is making big progress on new, large-scale projects. The building itself is large scale. About 60 feet tall, the white metal building dominates its Port of Skagit site east of the La Conner Marina. Taller than the old Moore Clark building, it puts an exclamation point on the town’s decades-long shift from seafood processing to high-tech marine industries. A 12 p.m. May 27 ribbon-cutting cer...
Fifty-years-ago the La Conner commercial scene boasted canneries, full-service fuel stations and a major fish-food processing plant. All are gone now. But 1970 also saw the ribbon cut for launch of a new and key cog in the local economy – one that not only remains but has grown significantly over the past half-century. The first phase of the Port of Skagit’s La Conner Marina was dedicated in late May that year with a ceremony keynoted by U.S. Sen. Henry Jackson, of Everett, who twice sough...
Aaron Reinstra was born to be a fire chief. The La Conner Fire Chief, to be exact. As a kid he would sneak along when his dad was called from home to the fire hall for emergency runs. Reinstra was just eight or nine at the time, but it only seemed natural to catch those rides given that multiple generations of his family have served as La Conner firefighters. Reinstra’s own service dates to 1991. Today he is La Conner Hook & Ladder’s new chief, succeeding Josh Morrison, who stepped down fro...
I am tired of hearing the recurring complaints re NASWI (Naval Air Station Whidbey Island) “jet noise” from a small but highly vocal band of NIMBYs, and their unrealistic “solutions” to a “problem” that does not exist. Unless they were here prior to 1942 when the Naval Air Station first became operational, their complaints have absolutely no validity. The Air Station’s primary mission is not about to change, and the operational squadrons based there are not going to move “somewhere else” to satisfy the whims of a few malcontents. NASW...
Dunlap Towing is making sure a grand old name not only rides the tide of history but also impacts the Pacific maritime industry for years to come. The La Conner-based company expanded its fleet with the launching on Jan. 20 of the “Sigrid Dunlap,” a state-of-the-art Phyllis-class ocean-going tug designed for the firm’s work towing barges between Seattle and Honolulu. “It was dark and cold at 7:30 in the morning,” said Dunlap Towing Assistant Controller Meghan Dunlap-Rice, “but the wind subsid...
Short and sweet is always great. But there are times, as was the case Thursday night inside Landy James Gymnasium, when long and bittersweet is even better. Just ask members of the La Conner High Class of 2014, which was honored during emotional, heartfelt two-hour commencement exercises that often resembled those usually reserved for college and university graduation ceremonies. It was a night filled with serious themes and messages, humorous asides and dialogue, inspirational choral...
