Recognizing and appreciating the contributions of the Kanaka family

Thank you for your interesting article “When the Border Came” (Island Sounder, Sept.12, by Darrel Kirk. https://www.islandssounder.com/life/when-the-border-came-how-1872-displaced-hawaiian-families-from-san-juan-island/). I appreciate all that “Auntie Kate” Roland is doing to keep the family traditions and history of the Kanaka in Britich Columbia alive.

Not all Kanaka left the San Juan Islands when the international boundary was imposed, however. Two notable families who stayed were the Bulls and the Fridays.

Both Catherine Bull (Emmerling, later Vermouth) and her brother Joseph Bull applied for American citizenship in order to homestead in San Juan Valley on San Juan and Crow Valley on Orcas, respectively. They were the children of John Stephano Bull, a Kanaka, and Mary Thomas Skqualup, who had a Lummi father and a S’Klallam mother.

The Friday family is more well-known. The patriarch was just called “Friday” by his Hudson’s Bay Company employers, only receiving the name “Pierre” or “Peter” after he married Mary Saaptner Skomiax, daughter of Songhees Chief Jim Skomiax. It was after him that Friday Harbor was named, not his son Joseph (Joe), who was only 10 years old when Friday arrived on San Juan Island as a shepherd. But it was Joe who applied for American citizenship and obtained a homestead in San Juan Valley.

The Kanaka contribution to the San Juan Islands is important and deserves appreciation.

Boyd C. Pratt,

San Juan Island