Portage Island

Lummi Nation School (LNS) is a K-12 tribal school for the Lummi people, in unincorporated Whatcom County, Washington, with a Bellingham postal address. It is affiliated with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).It has a compact with the state of Washington and receives a grant from the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE).According to Kira M. Cox of the Seattle Times, circa 2003-2008 the school had significant staff and principal turnover, low test scores, and low student discipline. Five superintendents and three principals were in place during that period.According to Cox, after 2008, when Heather Leighton became principal, conditions improved. In 2008 there were 350 students.A related boarding facility for the tribal school, Lummi Youth Academy, opened in 2008. It cost $2.1 million to build and was to hold up to 40 boarders in grades 8–12, with a staff of 21 employees. The Gates Foundation and other charitable entities planned to help cover the $1.4 million yearly cost of operations. An equal number of male and female students may be accommodated. Students may live at school year round, or they may visit family on weekends.

Lummi Island lies at the southwest corner of Whatcom County, Washington, United States, between the mainland part of the county and offshore San Juan County. The Lummi Indian Reservation is situated on a peninsula east of the island, but it does not include Lummi Island. The island has a land area of 23.97 square kilometres (9.25 square miles) and had a population of 822 as of the 2000 census. The population nearly doubles in summer when second-home owners from Canada and the U.S. arrive for the summer months. The island is accessible by a 20-car ferry, the Whatcom Chief, run by Whatcom County Public Works. It is a 6-minute passage from Gooseberry Point on the mainland to the island. Public education for island residents is provided by the Ferndale School District. It operates one elementary school (K-5) on the island, Beach Elementary School. Middle and high school students must travel to attend schools on the mainland.

Eliza Island is located in the western part of Bellingham Bay in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies just east of the southern part of Lummi Island, in Whatcom County. Eliza Island has a land area of 0.571 km2 (0.220 sq mi; 141 acres). Its population was ten persons as of the 2010 census. The island was named by Charles Wilkes during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838–1842. One of the few names given by Wilkes that does not honor either members of his crew or American naval officers, Eliza refers to Francisco de Eliza, the Spanish commander of a 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest. Wilkes may have named the island for his daughter or his sister, both named Eliza.The south end of Eliza island is home to commercial and recreational crabbing. Eliza Island has a small airstrip that can only be used during daylight hours, and one dock which is used strictly for loading and unloading. There is no scheduled ferry service to the island, although private charters can be hired for residents. It is a private island with only about five people who live there year-round. Private generators provide electricity, and a communal water desalinization system is used to provide water to the residents. Only people who are 25 or older or disabled are allowed to use golf carts; although most residents travel by foot. A designated swimming beach on the south side of the island is sandy and somewhat shallow.

Bellingham Bay is a bay of the Salish Sea located in Washington State in the United States. It is separated from the Strait of Georgia on the west by the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, and Lummi Island. It is bordered on the east by Bellingham, Washington, to the south-east by the Chuckanut Mountains, and to the south by Samish Bay. The Nooksack River empties into the bay, as does Whatcom Creek. Bellingham Bay is named for Sir William Bellingham, who was controller of the storekeeper's account for the Royal Navy at the time that the Vancouver Expedition visited the bay in June 1792. The first European entry of the bay was by the Spanish schooner Santa Saturnina under José María Narváez, during the 1791 expedition of Francisco de Eliza. Narváez named it Seno Gaston.

Beach is an unincorporated community on Lummi Island in Whatcom County, in the U.S. state of Washington.

The Nooksack River is a river in western Whatcom County of the northwestern U.S. state of Washington, draining extensive valley systems within the North Cascades around Mount Shuksan, Mount Baker and the Twin Sisters, and a portion of Fraser Lowland south of the Canada–United States border. The river proper begins with the merging of three main tributaries, namely the North Fork, Middle Fork and South Fork, near Deming. All three forks originate in the Mount Baker Wilderness, and the North Fork, the longest of the three, is sometimes considered the main river. The Nooksack is approximately 75 miles (121 km) in total length measuring from the North Fork headwaters. The lower Nooksack flows as a northerly loop through the fertile southern Fraser Lowland agricultural area before emptying into Bellingham Bay and, via the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia, communicating with the Pacific Ocean.

Vendovi Island is an island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Located in Skagit County, Washington, United States, Vendovi Island lies across Samish Bay from mainland Skagit County, between Guemes Island and Lummi Island. Vendovi Island has a land area of 220.24 acres (89.13 ha) and a population of two persons was reported as of the 2000 census. The Island was named after a Fijian High Chief Ro Veidovi who was brought to North America by the Wilkes Expedition.The San Juan Preservation Trust, a land trust that conserves open space in the San Juan Islands, purchased the island in December 2010 from the family of John Fluke Sr.

Northwest Indian College (Xwlemi Elh>Tal>Nexw Squl) is a public tribal land-grant community college in Bellingham, Washington. It was established by the Lummi Nation and is the only accredited tribal college or university serving reservation communities of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Sinclair Island is an island in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a part of, and lies off the western shore of mainland Skagit County. The island has a land area of 4.109 km2 (1.586 sq mi) and is home to only a few private residents. The name Sinclair was given by Charles Wilkes during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838–1842. It honors Arthur Sinclair, who was captain of General Pike during a naval battle of the War of 1812.Settlers in the 1890s referred to the island as Cottonwood Island, after the lumber harvested there for making barrel heads and staves.

The Lummi River is the current name for a river channel that was, prior to the beginning of the 20th century, the main outflow channel for the Nooksack River. It then emptied into Lummi Bay rather than Bellingham Bay, as the current channel of the Nooksack River does. At the time, the channel that now serves as the main channel of the Nooksack River was restricted by a massive, mile-long, log jam. This was the result of the timber industry floating logs downriver to ports for processing and shipping. In the late 19th century, with an interest in creating a navigable waterway that would empty into Bellingham Bay and be usable beyond Ferndale, the city of Bellingham commissioned removal of the log jam. Once the log jam was removed, the river's flow shifted into the southern channel. The headwaters of the Lummi River were restricted by a dam, which was later damaged. It was replaced by a dam and spillway system, which was also later damaged. Today the Lummi River is fed by water from the Nooksack River only during times of high water, by a culvert that passes through the levee. The Lummi River today is characterized by a narrow channel. As its main purpose is as a high water overflow, it has been artificially channelized and diked to prevent flooding of surrounding agricultural fields. It has a low flow as a result of its short course across glacially ploughed flatlands. The considerable reduction in the flow of the river has allowed erosive processes to strongly affect the Lummi River Delta. It was formerly of considerable size, and might have been comparable to the modern Nooksack River Delta in Bellingham Bay. The channelization and diking of the river resulted in the production of significant new areas of rich farmland, but it has cost the elimination of an equal or greater acreage of coastal wetlands and damage to important salmon habitats. Because of the importance of salmon to indigenous tribes, commercial and sports fishermen, state and local governments are evaluating proposals to investigate restoration of these habitats.

Fort Bellingham (1856–1860) was a U.S. Army fort built to prevent attacks by Indians from Canada and from Russian territory, on the bayside villages of Fairhaven, Sehome and Whatcom. The site for the new fort was on a prairie that overlooked Bellingham Bay. It was the only open space on the bay and had a spring. A settler, Maria Roberts, had to be evicted to build the fort, but she and her husband were later allowed to build a cabin on the beach. The fort was built by U.S. Army Captain George E. Pickett and Company D of the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment sent from Fort Steilacoom. Construction started August 26, 1856. The fort was an 80-yard square stockade with three gates. Two blockhouses of two stories lay at opposite corners, flanking the stockade walls loopholed for rifles and mountain howitzers. Within the stockade were wood-framed one-story buildings including the barracks, storehouses, officers quarters, mess hall, kitchen, and bakery. In July 1859, the Pig War broke out on San Juan Island when an American settler, Lyman Cutlar, shot a Hudson’s Bay Company pig. Brigadier General William S. Harney, Department of Oregon commander, learned that British authorities in Victoria had threatened to arrest Cutlar and dispatched Pickett’s company from Fort Bellingham to the island to protect American interests. In response, the British sent warships and a detachment of marines. While the opposing forces that summer were facing off at San Juan Island, Pickett’s men returned and dismantled pieces of Fort Bellingham including one of the blockhouses and reassembled them on the island’s southern shore creating "Camp Pickett" later called "Post of San Juan". What remained of Fort Bellingham was removed by units later occupying the San Juan Island post to improve or repair buildings in their camp. In 1861, the Washington Territorial Legislature asked the federal government to post at least one company at the fort to keep it open, but that never occurred. The fort officially closed in 1863. By then, only the blockhouse on the northwest corner and a few other structures remained. In 1868, the Army returned 320 acres (1.3 km2) to Mrs. Roberts, who lived there for many years thereafter and farmed the land. In 1897, the blockhouse burned down. Few traces of the fort remain today. The officer's quarters (that housed Capt. George E. Pickett and his Indian wife) is preserved at 910 Bancroft Street in the Lettered Streets neighborhood of Bellingham, Washington. The site of the fort is several miles north along the shore of the bay, closer to the mouth of the Nooksack River.

Zodiac is a two-masted schooner designed by William H. Hand, Jr. for Robert Wood Johnson and J. Seward Johnson, heirs to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals fortune. Hand intended to epitomize the best features of the American fishing schooner. The 160-foot-long (49 m) (sparred length; 127 feet (39 m) on deck), 145-ton vessel competed in transatlantic races. In 1931 the vessel was purchased by the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, brought from the Atlantic, modified and placed in service as the pilot vessel California serving as such until retired in 1972.