The year in review: 2025

A young girl wearing a blue visor and pink T-shirt carefully paints a textured outdoor sculpture with a small brush.
Photo by Nancy K. Crowell/La Conner Community News Eight-year-old emerging artist Ika Phillips teamed up with renowned local painter Maggie Wilder to restore the salmon slide at the waterfront park beneath the Rainbow Bridge.

In a year marked by uncertainty, from federal disruptions that rippled into local budgets to economic headwinds that changed who showed up downtown, La Conner also saw steady reminders of what holds a small town together: community institutions that endure, projects that strengthen resilience, and neighbors who show up for each other.

7–10 minutes

From a last-minute lifeline for the La Conner Sunrise Food Bank to the town’s biggest Pride Month yet, this year-end report revisits the moments that reshaped daily life in 2025 — and the near-miss flood that tested the valley’s nerves even without inundating downtown.

The food bank stayed put

For most of the year, the La Conner Sunrise Food Bank was on the brink of losing its familiar home at Third and Benton. The historic Garfield Masonic Lodge building, where the local pantry has long operated, had a prospective buyer. And the food bank’s lease for use of the lodge hall was due to expire on Dec. 31. But when the sale of the Victorian era building unexpectedly fell through, the food bank — with help from benefactor Duane Holmes — was able to step in and make its own successful purchase offer in early December. La Conner Sunrise Food Bank was saved here for the long term. At present, it serves 120-140 families each week.

Canadian tourism declined

Canadian visitors have long been part of La Conner’s economic rhythm — tulip season, summer weekends, holiday shopping — sustaining shops, galleries, restaurants and hotels. In 2025, that rhythm faltered. Business owners cited tariffs and retaliation that raised cross-border costs, long border waits, tougher exchange rates and uncertainty that dampened travel. Summer reporting found slower foot traffic and fewer familiar faces from B.C. The local picture matched a December Joint Economic Committee brief: Canadian travel to the U.S. fell, with passenger-vehicle crossings down nearly 20% nationwide and more than 24% in Washington from January to October.

Dunlap Towing celebrated a century

In 2025, La Conner Community News marked a milestone with our in-depth feature on Dunlap Towing’s 100th anniversary—a century-long story rooted on the La Conner waterfront and still shaping regional and international waters today.
Founded in 1925, Dunlap Towing began by hauling grain, fish, straw, and other Skagit Valley goods to Seattle. A hundred years later, the company has evolved into a multi-faceted maritime firm with a modern, ocean-going fleet supporting work from Puget Sound to Alaska and Hawaii, and beyond.
Our reporting highlighted the company’s generational continuity and civic footprint—how Dunlap provided living-wage jobs, drew talent from local families, and invested back into the community, including efforts that helped bolster La Conner’s economy during leaner decades. While much of its operations are now based in Everett, the corporate office remains in La Conner, underscoring the company’s enduring connection to its hometown.
As CEO Jim Dunlap reflected, it’s a business built to think in long horizons—“a century at a time.”

Federal dysfunction impacted schools

Decisions in the other Washington impacted education in La Conner this year.
 
The freezing of federal education funding last summer caused temporary grief for the La Conner School District. The district braced to close its Braves Hub after-school program and put the brakes on its launch of a new pre-K program. Ultimately, the funds were released and those programs were saved — at least for the 2025-26 school year — though staff members left in limbo during the summer left the school district for employment elsewhere and the Hub opened a month late.
 
A federal government shutdown in Washington, D.C., delayed La Conner Schools’ receipt of about $1 million in federal impact aid for several weeks this fall. The district relies on the aid to offset revenue it cannot collect from tax-exempt federal property in the area. The shutdown stemmed in part from a dispute over extending Affordable Care Act tax subsidies beyond their Dec. 31 expiration; as La Conner Community News goes to press, the subsidies are still expected to expire Thursday, raising the cost of health insurance dramatically for people who purchase it on the exchange.

Pride Month was a smash

La Conner marked its biggest Pride Month yet in 2025, with a packed lineup of events that blended celebration, education and community-building. The La Conner Thrives Association launched the month with a library exhibit on the 1969 Stonewall Riots, emphasizing why visibility still matters. The month’s signature event — a sold-out Pride Drag Show at the Swinomish Yacht Club on June 14 — drew about 115 guests and 20 volunteers and raised more than $1,700 for LGBTQIA2S+ youth and inclusion efforts. By July, organizers and participants said the impact lingered in new friendships, stronger ties and a renewed sense of safety. Local business owner Jules Riske called the turnout a needed boost: “We need those wins right now. The stronger we are as a community, the more we’re going to be able to take care of each other.”

Eggs: From luxury item to… slightly less luxury

Early 2025 felt like a checkout-line crisis, with most groceries in Skagit County charging upwards of $12 a carton, the result of the bird flu ravaging the egg supply across the country. By late 2025, national data suggested some relief even as the bird flu keeps biting. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs at $2.86 in November, down from $3.49 in September. USDA reported wholesale prices still sliding on light demand and moderate-to-heavy supplies, with the national loose large-white benchmark near $0.73 per dozen. La Conner shoppers may still feel squeezed: 42.2 million layers were lost to HPAI in 2025, and local supply chains reprice slowly.

Arts Alive! celebrated 40 years

What started as a local showcase for artists, the Art’s Alive! Weekend art show celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. Started in the 1980s as a way to showcase local artists and businesses, the festival has been hosted by various groups and individuals but has grown into the main fundraising event for the La Conner Arts Foundation, which offers scholarships to art students in the valley. This year’s event was dubbed the Legends show, and every artist who had ever been featured in the invitational show was invited to contribute a piece, so visitors were treated to works by the likes of Richard Gilkey and Guy Anderson, alongside those of living artists like Maggie Wilder and Andy Eccleshall. Under the new leadership of Sheila Johnson, the show dates moved up a week into October, although the traditionally rainy weather did not skip the weekend.

One from many: Protesters took to First St. and Morris

This year was a year of nationwide protests akin to the widespread protests during the Vietnam era. In La Conner, it started with a single person— Jai Boreen— who set up in Gilkey Square on a cold, wet, winter morning and invited people to have a dialogue. Soon, Boreen was joined by a few people. By summer, when the nationwide No Kings protest took place, word had spread that even tiny La Conner had a regular Saturday protest scheduled downtown. More than 400 people came from all over Western Washington and elsewhere. Some were visitors on vacation who happened to find out there was a local protest, others drove up from Stanwood and Seattle, some came from Granite Falls and beyond, to protest in a small town that they perceived as safe and less likely to attract a violent backlash. They lined both sides of Morris Street and First Street, waving homemade signs and American flags.

Tom Robbins’ desk took up permanent residence at the historical museum

In July, Alexa Robbins made a lasting gift to the Skagit County Historical Museum by donating Tom Robbins’ writing desk, just months after the acclaimed author’s death in February. Her generosity transforms a private creative space into a public legacy.
Unveiled as a new permanent display on July 24, the exhibit features Robbins’ desk, his typewriter, and select objects that sparked inspiration as he wrote beloved novels including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Another Roadside Attraction. Visitors can experience this tribute 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Thursday–Sunday.

A new fireboat joined the fleet

Years in the making, a sustained campaign to acquire a new Town fire and emergency vessel achieved success in 2025. The multi-purpose fireboat, built by Fulltime Fabrication & Machine Works, was christened on Sept. 23 during a ceremony on the La Conner waterfront. Town Council member Ivan Carlson, a La Conner volunteer firefighter who had championed the drive to secure a new fireboat here, noted that the Port of Skagit covered half the cost of the boat and has provided moorage for the vessel at La Conner Marina. La Conner Fire Chief Aaron Reinstra, who was given the honor of formally christening “Marine 27,” expressed his gratitude: “I’m excited that, after 30 years, we finally have a boat that can serve our community in a safe way,” he said.  

Downtown changed slowly, then all at once

Historic La Conner’s streetscape shifted in 2025 as several long-discussed changes moved forward. Construction began on the three-story apartment/condo project at 306 Center Street after it cleared final permit hurdles, despite opposition over its scale next to a residential neighborhood. Supporters say the development will add needed housing options, especially for residents who no longer want or can’t maintain single-family homes.
On North First Street, a new façade was designed for the former Nasty Jack’s Antiques annex to become the relocated B.U.tiful boutique, expanding owners Andrea and Matt Wikstrom into a space roughly four times larger than their Pier 7 storefront. Meanwhile, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community removed its aging open-air market structure on South First Street; the cleared site hosted seasonal pop-up oyster sales this summer.

The Skagit River flooded … everywhere else

During a powerful atmospheric river sequence starting Dec. 10, Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a state of emergency and communities in the Skagit River’s 100-year floodplain were urged to prep “GO bags” and study evacuation plans. High tide passed without major coastal flooding then all eyes moved to the levees and the Skagit River’s surge. A week later, La Conner had avoided the worst — thanks to infrastructure, coordination, timing and plain old luck. Other communities weren’t as fortunate, and it will be months before the full impact of the damage to farms, fisheries, businesses and residences is understood.
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