Families Wanted: Stuart Island -- Unspoiled, Uncomplicated, Uncrowded - A Little Too Uncrowded

One-room, K-8 school on scenic, remote Stuart Island needs students. Low student/teacher ratio. Excellent educational opportunity. No power, phone lines, ferry service, paved roads, pollution or crime. Nearest store 3 miles by boat. Cellular phones and generator power possible. Planes and water taxis carry people, UPS, mail. Yacht tourists in summer, very quiet in winter. Positive environment for families. For more information, write Stuart Island School, Star Route, Friday Harbor, WA 98250.

THE SAN JUANS Islands. Unspoiled. Uncrowded. Uncomplicated.

Used to be when you moved to the San Juans, that's what you were looking for. You were fed up with life in the big city and were either rich enough to buy yourself away from it all or cynical enough to become a hermit. There's still some truth there. The San Juans harbor their fair share of millionaires and drop-outs. But if you thought all the people who live here are rural isolationists, 39-year-old ex-Microsoft employees or religious zealots looking to escape the evils of society, check out Stuart Island.

There, you'll find a group of young families settled among the old-timers and big-spenders. There, you'll meet a group of people who want to make a life on an island that offers no full-time employment except that of the teacher at Stuart Island School. There, you'll find a group of people whose life revolves around a school that may or may not be open for business next year if enough kids aren't enrolled. And for that reason, there you'll find a group of remote island dwellers who, unlike some of their neighbors on nearby (and more notorious) islands, have gone as far as advertising to encourage more people to join them.

Meet Loie Benson, mother of three, boat captain, self-appointed postmaster, publisher, social activist and, quite possibly, the closest thing Stuart Island has to a mayor. She and her husband Ezra (who runs a printing business in Seattle) recently moved their family of five to Stuart Island because of the school. "This is an ideal environment to raise children in," says Loie, whose 7-year-old daughter, Jesselle, is the youngest child in Stuart Island School. "And we were willing to sacrifice an easier life in favor of a good one." Following Loie Benson around for a day is sort of like following a toddler. By noon, you're exhausted. Every morning after breakfast, she packs Jesselle and her younger twin sisters into an old 1974 Citroen jeep and drives a mile from the house to the dock at the tip of Prevost Harbor.

There everyone, bundled to ward off the harsh marine elements even in 80-degree heat, adds a layer of life-preserver to the ensemble and climbs into the little skiff that will take them to the other end of the harbor. Loie, who looks a bit like a Gore-Tex version of Amelia Earhart, complete with "aviator hood" and Terminator sunglasses, drives fast although she admits a healthy fear of the water. She doesn't swim.

From the beach, the girls walk to another 1974 Citroen (one of three identical vehicles they keep on the island) that old-timer and island institution Ralph Ericksen lets her park on his property, and drive up the dirt road to the school to drop Jesselle off. Then the twins and Loie head home for the day's activities, which might include baking cookies, editing the island newsletter, delivering the mail, visiting neighbors or trying to organize an all-island get-together. In the afternoon, Loie and the little girls repeat the trip to pick Jesselle up and then head home to make supper. Not exactly the slow pace of life you might expect of a San Juan resident - in fact not that different from the life of the mom-cum-taxi-driver in the 'burbs. So why trade?

Aside from the obvious things missing from Stuart Island - power, phone, ferry service, Slurpees at the 7-Eleven - the island may well be the nirvana that a world-weary, crime-wary, traffic-tired couple and their MTV-spoiled kids are looking for: an uncrowded, island oasis where you can have all the technology you can afford or none; where you can listen to the birds in the morning or you can turn on your laptop, check the morning stock quotes and call your broker on your cellular; where you can walk wherever you have to go (assuming you have to go somewhere), or you can drive a car and laugh at the traffic report on your car radio. And, if all that is not enough, you can enroll your children in an accredited Washington State public school that has no crime, virtually no discipline problems, no swear words on the bathroom walls, and the best student/teacher ratio in the state. This is the place where the guy on TV says, "Now how much would you pay? Don't answer yet! You also get a set of steak knives!" In this case, the bonus prize is the sheer natural beauty of the most remote island in the San Juans.

Without the curse of ferry service, Stuart Island has managed to maintain the pristine, rural quality many of its San Juan sisters have lost. From the edge of the glistening green water surrounding the island, thick ancient forests climb up and down the island's many hills dotted with wild sheep and deer that glance suspiciously at stray humans trespassing on their property. At the outer banks, front-line tree roots struggle to break free from the tough, vascular rocks that bind them to the very land that gives them life. Wild mink scamper along the rocky shoreline, and here and there, a meadow, a garden, or maybe a house, interrupts the pasture in a brave attempt at civilization. But the island holds its position as if to say, "Not me. Not on my watch."

Despite that hold-out mentality, one island institution has managed to break through enemy lines and set up camp: the Stuart Island School. Sitting in a clearing at the top of a 10-minute walk straight uphill from Reid Harbor, the school is an award-winning architectural gem nestled between a multi-purpose athletic field (otherwise known as a meadow) and the school's very discrete compost project. The road to the school is shrouded by a thick canopy of old-growth forest and, on occasion, an even thicker cloud of new-growth mosquitoes.

Three "one-roomers" have served as schoolhouses for the children of Stuart Island since the turn of the century. The oldest school, a 10-foot-by-15-foot room, now disintegrated except for a crumbling foundation and an old brick chimney, sits in the woods 100 yards away from the new school. The second schoolhouse, a red-and-white clapboard building that has seen Stuart Island students from mid-century till 1981, now sits about 50 feet from the new school and serves as the library. The current school, built in 1981, is all wood and beams and logs and windows and totems; a modern longhouse that looks out onto lilacs and bushes and forests and fields. No school buses, no crossing guards, no chain-link fences. No bells, no announcements, no lunch lines. Just six kids and a whole lot of nature. Not a bad place to make a living in public education.

MEET CHERYL Opalski, teacher, counselor, vice principal, activities coordinator, secretary, school nurse, librarian, prize-winning gardener, and, quite possibly, the only fully salaried person on Stuart Island. Every morning at 6 a.m., she rolls out of bed, combs her long brown hair, slides her feet into a pair of Birkenstocks and climbs down from the loft onto the cool, wood-plank floor of the rustic kitchen. She fills the kettle, sets it over the flame, hurries to the doorless, purple outhouse 30 feet from the house and then to the garden to feed the rabbits and the chickens, water the squash and pull a few weeds. Satisfied, she brushes the dirt off her hands (it stays on her feet) and walks briskly back to the house to eat breakfast before beginning the 15-minute walk up the one-lane dirt road to the schoolhouse. She arrives at 7:15 a.m. Still plenty of time to start the fire and review the day's lessons.

The children begin to arrive at 8:30 a.m., one by boat, two on horseback, three on foot. They range in age from 7 to 14 and all call their teacher "Cheryl." Her curriculum includes black holes and sex education, and across from the woodstove that heats the one-room school house are several Macintosh computers on which the students will write their papers today.

Just what is it about this little one-room schoolhouse on Stuart Island that draws otherwise normal, convenience-oriented 20th Centurions to a life of hard labor, infrequent showers and a way of life best described as uncomfortable? For one thing, it's the quality of the education you get when you've got almost one-on-one attention in the classroom. For another, Stuart Island is a really cool place to go to school.

Situated at the apex of the Haro Strait, Stuart Island is the farthest northwest corner of Washington State, the last U.S.-owned island in the diagonal chain of the San Juans before the archipelago becomes Canada's Gulf Islands.

For its name, Stuart Island can thank a writer, of sorts. While other islands in the San Juans were named after Spanish and British explorers or famous military heroes, Stuart Island was named after Frederick D. Stuart, ship's clerk of the USS Vincennes, one of the ships surveying the Northwest in the Wilkes Naval Expedition of 1841. Commodore Charles Wilkes reported to the U.S. Congress that the success of the expedition was due in large part to Stuart's services, so it might be said that Stuart Island got its name from one of the first bosses to recognize that value of a good secretary.

Over the years, an eclectic bunch of people have called Stuart Island home, some for a few years, some for a lifetime. The exact number of current fulltime residents differs, depending on whom you ask and what season it is. Best guess is that about 25 people live here year-round, not counting those with summer homes who visit on and off. That hard core of 25 or so consists of what might called the old-timers, the hippies, the live-aboarders, and, of course, the new wave of young families who live here because they want their children to grow up in paradise.

Meet Kent Sooter, father of three, maintenance guy, lawn mower, hoop welder, wood chopper, boat builder, critter gatherer, softball pitcher and, quite possibly, the closest thing Stuart Island has to a Renaissance man. He and his wife, Hooper, bought 5 acres in 1978 and moved here with dreams of a driftwood house and a rock wall overlooking the strait. Three boys later, the driftwood house is still a dream, though the hand-built wood home they live in does have an amazing view of the water. Kent, tall and thin with a boyish face, wears a stained Stuart Island School T-shirt that has seen more than its share of island dust. He represents what might be called the "new guard" of Stuart Island: the relative newcomers who are neither independently wealthy nor retired but are attempting to make a life on Stuart in spite of the difficulty that lack of employment presents. Aside from the fact that they all genuinely like living here, they're really doing it to keep the school alive: While they know the formula for funding a "remote and necessary" school is a loose one, they all remember why the school closed down in 1962.

The Hendrons, a large family of eight, moved to Stuart in the late 1950s when 32-year-old James Hendron took a job as a caretaker on the island. By 1961, their children made up nearly the entire enrollment of Stuart Island School. On a beautiful December day during Christmas break that year, the family decided to take an outing to Roche Harbor in their old dory. They never returned. Island folks speculate the boat may have exploded when a stray ash hit the fuel tank, but no one will ever know for sure since none of the Hendrons, except their infant son whose body washed up on Vancouver Island early that January, were ever found.

Authorities were left to conclude that the family was lost in a tragic fire at sea and, with no students to begin the new year, Stuart Island School closed in January 1962, and remained so for 16 years. It was reopened in 1977, when teacher Mac Greeley spearheaded an effort to provide, once again, educational services to children on the island. Despite fluctuating enrollment, it has been open ever since.

With only six children in 1995, Stuart is hard-pressed to offer much in the way of extra curricular activities. But life on a secluded island has a funny way of coaxing the imagination out of hiding and the Stuart kids have become very resourceful in making up their own "sports." One after-school favorite takes place at the pond on the Sooter property. Make no mistake, this is no chlorinated pool. There are critters in that pond that would scare an "off-islander" away in a New York second. But these critters are the raw material for an exciting new sport called "Leech Farming." Here are the rules: You stand near the edge of the pond with water up to your knees. You wait. You shiver a little. Then you wait some more. After an allotted and rather arbitrary interval (someone gets too cold and calls time) you step out of the water onto the floating dock and begin to pick off and count all the tiny leeches that have attached themselves to your feet and legs.

Whoever counts the most leeches wins. Probably not a contender for Olympic competition and certainly not for the squeamish, but it beats doing homework or feeding the horses.

PLENTY OF PEOPLE WHO visit Stuart Island fall in love with the place, and if you happen to catch the sunset from the lighthouse overlooking the Haro Straight, you might be tempted to ask where to sign up, too: Pods of orcas pop out of the water as if to catch a glimpse of the apricot clouds; sea lions bask in the last rays of the sun as it drags its arm across the crinkled tinfoil surface of the water; a lone bald eagle stands watch, as if to make sure the last place in Washington State to see the sun says a proper good-night.

But you'll notice the ad says, "Families wanted, . ." Just so you know, the folks who placed that ad in Northwest Writer, The Crafts Report and the Washington Homeschool Organization Newsletter mean it. As far as they're concerned, the island has a few too many "weekend at-the-mansion-ers" who don't serve much purpose except to drive up the property taxes. They are appealing to an admittedly narrow audience: committed, fulltime, island residents whose children will help keep the school afloat and whose families will enrich the small community. Stuart Island School lost one student this year (the oldest Sooter boy, Jesse, is attending Friday Harbor High School), but it gains two sisters, Hailey and Nomi Elliott, grades 4 and 8, who moved with their family to Stuart from Friday Harbor. This brings enrollment up to seven, but that's only this year.

Overall, response to the ads has been minimal and, after the initial meetings, second dates have been rare. Stuart Island is not easy to live with and she is looking for a meaningful relationship. But if you find that you have the yen for living on a beautiful island; if you know that you are hardy, patient and resourceful; if you wish for a kinder, gentler life; and, if you have children, Stuart Island and you just might get along pretty well. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Gretchen Huizinga co-owns and manages a Seattle-based film and video production company. She is also a freelance writer. Harley Soltes is Pacific Magazine's photographer.