Doe Bay is a small community on the southeastern shore of Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound, and lies about 7 miles (11.3 km) southeast of Eastsound and 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Olga, Washington. The name “Orcas” is derived from Horcasitas, after Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, the 2nd Count of Revillagigedo and Viceroy of Mexico. He dispatched an exploration expedition led by Francisco de Eliza to the Pacific Northwest in 1791.

Orcas Island, part of the San Juan archipelago in the Salish Sea of northwest Washington, is mountainous and heavily forested. The island is nearly divided by the long inlet of East Sound, with two smaller inlets, West Sound and Deer Harbor, indenting its western half. Historically, it has been part of the traditional homeland of the Lummi tribe and other Straits Salish peoples, with archaeological evidence indicating human habitation for thousands of years. European explorers charted the island in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and British and American trappers and settlers arrived by the 1850s.

Hudson’s Bay Company employees were the first to raise sheep and pigs, hunt deer, and trade with local Native Americans. Kanaka shepherds from Hawaii tended sheep, while French Canadians trapped and hunted on San Juan and Orcas Islands. Louis Cayou, a hunter, married a local Lummi-Saanich woman named Mary Anne. They settled permanently on Orcas Island in 1859, with Cayou generally credited as its first permanent settler. Other early settlers included William Moore, who settled in Olga in 1860, and John Viereck, who arrived at Doe Bay in 1872. Orcas Island was part of the territory disputed during the “Pig War” but became part of San Juan County, Washington, after arbitration awarded the islands to the United States. Pioneer settlement increased immediately, and by 1895, a productive agricultural community was established. Today, the island is connected to the mainland by the Washington State Ferries system. Read more here and here. Explore more of Doe Bay and Orcas Island here: