From late March to early June, wildflowers carpet Yellow Island. Colors emerge and recede, beginning with yellow buttercups and delicate white fawn lilies. Cryptic brown and green chocolate lilies, purple shooting stars and blue camas contribute their colors to the already brilliant palette of nature's hues.

Long known to passengers aboard Washington's San Juan Islands ferries for its dramatic display of spring wildflowers, 10-acre Yellow Island is among the most colorful of The Nature Conservancy's holdings. The small preserve's springtime display of floral profusion and diversity is greater than that of any other similar-sized area in the 170-island San Juan archipelago.

More than 150 species of wildflowers, including broadleafed shooting star, hairy Indian paintbrush and brittle prickly pear cactus (the only cactus species native to Western Washington), can be found here. Many of these plants occur throughout the San Juans, but only Yellow Island, with its open fescue meadows and the absence of resident grazing animals, hosts such dense populations.

Yellow Island is long and thin, with sand spits at each end, a belt of evergreens across the middle and grassy meadows that overlook the two spits. Contained on this tiny piece of land are representatives of nearly all of the important floral groups of the San Juans. Bald eagles frequently perch in the island's tallest trees, and harbor seals haul out on the island's twin spits between tides. Highly patterned harlequin ducks forage near shore, taking advantage of the prolific life in the intertidal zone.

Farther from the island's wave-swept, weather-beaten coast, bold black and white killer whales travel in large family groups called pods. Other marine mammals—minke whales, harbor porpoise and Dall's porpoise—swim in the nutrient-laden currents that bathe Yellow Island.

When Lewis and Elizabeth ("Tib") Dodd bought the island in 1947, they were determined to live in peaceful coexistence with nature. An avid reader of Thoreau, Lewis Dodd strongly believed in self-sufficiency. After living in a tent for two years, he and Tib moved into a house, a small rustic cabin they built with beach-combed timber and rock. This distinctive landmark remains basically unaltered to this day. As the Dodds cultivated a small garden, planted a few fruit trees and grape vines and raised chickens and pigeons for meat, they left the island's wealth of animals and plants largely undisturbed. Their years on the island were testimony to a lifestyle in harmony with nature.

After her husband's death in 1960, Tib continued to live on the island during the summer months, spending winters at her daughter's home in Seattle. Her decision to sell the island to The Nature Conservancy of Washington in 1980 was greeted enthusiastically by her family and San Juan Island neighbors. Today, a pair of bronze memorial plaques for the Dodds, their cabin (which now serves as a home for the island's caretakers) and a few inconspicuous nature trails serve to remind us of Yellow Island's former occupants.