Guss Island is a small island in the
San Juan Islands
The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...
of the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
of
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
. It lies in Garrison Bay, on the northwestern shore of
San Juan Island
San Juan Island is the second-largest and most populous of the San Juan Islands in northwestern Washington (state), Washington, United States. It has a land area of 142.59 km2 (55.053 sq mi) and a population of 6,822 as of the United States ...
.
The island was named for Guss Hoffmaster, a German storekeeper in the English Camp during the
Pig War.
Primarily, the park has had relations with the Lummi Indian Business Council. The Lummi believe Guss Island to be their point of origin into this world.
As discussed under archaeological resources, several burials were removed from Guss Island in Garrison Bay. In 1985 the park, with assistance from Jim Thomson and Kent Bush of the Pacific Northwest regional office, began negotiating for the return and reinternment of the burials to the Lummi. A Memorandum of Understanding was drafted with the council, calling for the park to provide a 30' x 30' space for the reburials. The Lummi were to provide the container and actually complete the reburial process. The agreement was signed and several remains reburied, although the container delivered to the site was never used and eventually disposed of by the park. Monitoring of remains at the park and relations with the Lummi have more recently been handled by Seattle Support Office anthropologist, Dr. Fred York.
References
San Juan Islands
{{SanJuanCountyWA-geo-stub