Can you show the way to ‘island center’?

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, August 16, 2006

As the editor recovers from a grueling and toilsome weekend of sailing (the closest he’s likely to get to a summer vacation), we’ll turn this space over to our good friend, writer and historian Jerry Elfehdahl, for reflections on the long and short (and narrow and wide) of island geography:

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Too often Bainbridge is described as “a 4-mile-wide by 10-mile-long island” – like a piece of mass-produced plywood or a room dimension.

Bainbridge Island is an amorphous pile of sand, gravel and sedimentary bedrock with undulating shorelines of points, bays, harbors, coves, bights, channels, sand spits, lagoons, shoals, islets, estuaries and beaches to which cling awe-inspiring forms of life, atmosphere and spirit.

If we must, between Agate Point to the north and Bean’s Point to the south – the island’s furthest separated points – it is 10.9 miles long (10.6 miles between Agate Point and Restoration Point).

Somewhat perpendicular, between Gibson’s Landing on the western shore (north of Point White Dock) and Restoration Point’s eastern tip, it is 4.7 miles wide (4.4 miles between Battle Point and Skiff Point).

You could say we are 10.857326252 miles long by 4.7031735839 miles wide, but what’s the point? Our headlands are ever-changing by drifting beach sands and cobble, erosion, tide heights and global sea elevations. Those decimal places are just from converting nautical miles of sea charts to statute or land miles – not from satellite and laser survey accuracy!

A fun question: “Where is the center of the island, the center of zip code 98110?”

Where, dear poets, should it be? The web site www.mapquest.com knows! Just seek a Mapquest direction to anywhere from zip 9-8-1-1-0. Every direction begins from the island’s geographic center. Try it, or find the answer near the end of this story.

A trick question: How far away are we from the mainland?

Answer: Just 30 feet.

What? Yes, if the sea should drop that far, then we could walk to Suquamish and the Kitsap Peninsula without an Agate Passage Bridge as people probably did 6,000 years ago. Were they chasing mammoths?

To put the whole island into a rectangular box with parallel north-south running sides, the box would need to be 10.8 miles long and 5.4 miles wide. That 2:1 length-to-width ratio should be remembered the next time you draw a map or help a youngster build one showing island relief.

Some like to compare Bainbridge Island’s size with New York City’s densely packed Manhattan Island. It is about 2 miles wide by 10 miles long, boxy and maybe of similar area. But, again, what’s the point?

We’re here and reluctant to swap trees for people. Our island’s center isn’t Broadway – or New Brooklyn. Close: It is just west of the stream where Woodward Middle School students are able to learn about the environment. The center of the island is on Laughing Salmon Lane!

A sense of place is not measured by finite math. The shape of things is more than form.

– Jerry Elfendahl