Today's geography quiz: It's a rural island as big as Manhattan with 11,000 residents but not a single red-green stop light. You have to get there by ferry; there's no bridge to the mainland. The island's only town, a half-dozen blocks long, looks like a time capsule from the 1960s.
Across the island, at the end of long driveways into the woods, one finds an assortment of housing —million-dollar homes and ragamuffin trailers with families dependent on the local food bank. Politically, the island's strikingly non-diverse population leans hard left. Republicans are as scarce as Sasquatch. There's no Starbucks. There is, however, a spanking new fine arts performance hall with a resident opera company. Pottery studios abound. Seattle school children commute by ferry to attend the well-regarded public high school.
The island attracts the famous and the quirky. The epidemiologist credited with leading the worldwide campaign to eradicate smallpox. A nationally known author-cheesemaker. An Olympic crew coach. And a Southern California radio personality who broadcasts his show live to Los Angeles from here because, well, he'd rather live on an island in Puget Sound than in L.A.
In the Seattle Times' weekend Pacific NW Magazine, Peter Rinearson profiles enchanting, oddball Vashon Island, where he lives. Seattle's population influx and soaring cost of living are making waves here but Rinearson notes "Keep Vashon Weird" remains the bumper sticker of choice among islanders.
"Vashon tries to keep it real despite an influx of people and money," Seattle Times.
