Roche Harbor resort offers comfort year round

First, Roche Harbor is the most exclusive of company towns. Second, Roche Harbor has always been a company town. Third, it is a great getaway any week of the year. And fourth, if you are a boater, you probably know all about the incredible, protected and peaceful harbor. I went as a tourist, on foot, boarding the ferry in Anacortes and taking a taxi (Roundabout, a Lions Club fundraising project) ten miles to the northwest corner of the island.

Yes, I traded lodging for this story. For single people, the resort’s Hotel de Haro, opened in 1886 and built around the original Hudson’s Bay Post, is the low cost option. Six of the 19 rooms are suites with bathrooms. The rest share bathrooms (with big showers) down the hall, but I didn’t mind. It was my kind of room in my kind of place.

I stayed four nights on the third floor in a room with a queen sized bed.

There are real keys for the doors. The floors creak only a little, and you can feel the well-worn groove from the countless steps of others over the past 134 years beneath the carpet.

Of course there is no elevator, just two short fights of narrow stairs up to the third floor. The outside stairs leading to the outside balcony is much wider, as is the balcony. The deck chairs are wood and the view of the harbor is perfect.

For couples and families there is a wide choice of cottages, condos and homes, boutique, family and historic, most owned by the resort. The hotel staff answer the phone. Online or in person they do a great job, as do the Madrona Grill staff.

It is true: this is picturesque Roche Harbor, in the Northeast corner of San Juan Island, where you are north of the Canadian border and about as far away from the other Washington as you can get and still be in the continental U.S.

It is almost inaccessible, so you really cannot get there except on purpose, nestled as it is in the northwest corner of the island, a peninsula. Only explorers, the intrepid and the purposeful come to Roche Harbor. You need to plan your stay and budget but not necessarily your activities.

Maybe that’s you. Or you and your family or your honey.

I didn’t see, much less rub elbows with the one percent, but I saw their boats. I walked out a dock to get close to really big boats, longer and taller than I have ever seen in La Conner. They are moored, waiting for their correspondingly rich owners to fly up for the weekend or a week.

On the whole, for tourism, think of a miniature La Conner, shrunk down to two places to eat, one for breakfast and lunch and two for dinner, and only one bar. There is a real grocery store, a fancy liquor store offering all kinds of kitchen gadgets and dining accessories and a world class spa with varied services and options requiring repeat visits to enjoy them all.

In this company town there are limited choices for food and drink in the winter, but both the Lime Kiln Cafe for breakfast and lunch and the Madrona Bar and Grill for dinner are adequate, with dinner being more interesting than breakfast. You can bring food with you, and purchase more, especially if your lodging has a kitchen.

McMillin’s, the fine dining option, is closed in winter.

In that understated, a historical way of our culture, Afterglow Spa does not say the they take their name from Afterglow Vista, the McMillin family mausoleum less than a mile outside of town, up a gated fire road and past an unmarked hillside cemetery.

Both are worth the visit, but only the outside sojourn experience is free.

There is a detailed history, of course, the story of John McMillin and the company town he created, building Roche Harbor into the largest lime works on the West Coast in the period 1886 - 1940.

On the same day, or another time, walk out of the resort and into the San Juan Island Sculpture Park. This alone is worth the trip. Donate at least five dollars when you go in.

First, the park itself is sculpted into the landscape. Between God, nature and the undulating lay of the land you are immersed in art.

Second it is a two and perhaps a three day experience. There is too much art, nature, words, poems and quotations to take in in one visit. Meandering through a third of it in a couple of hours will satiate you. Full and content, you will want to come back for more, not as a glutton but as a connoisseur.

Another day, circle around the ridge above the town and walk the quarry trails. You might see deer or an old homesteader with a wheelbarrow full of firewood. There is a bit of meandering and topography and you will reach a hilltop overlook where you can see into Canada if the weather cooperates, though hills and clouds make great scenery, too.

An option when you go: Lower your carbon footprint. Leave your car in the Anacortes ferry parking lot. If you bring your bike, it’s 10 miles, almost an hour ride and you get more exercise because your luggage is strapped to the bike rack.

Information: https://www.rocheharbor.com/.