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Camano Island is a large island in Possession Sound, a section of Puget Sound. It is part of Island County, Washington, and is located between Whidbey Island and the mainland (Snohomish County) by the Saratoga Passage to the west and Port Susan and Davis Slough to the east. The island has one road connection to the mainland, via State Route 532 over the Camano Gateway Bridge at the northeast end of the island, connecting to the city of Stanwood.
The island has a total area of , making it one of the largest in the state of Washington. It has a year-round population of 15,661 as of the 2010 census. The population peaks at over 17,000 during the summer months due to part-time residents with vacation homes on the island. It is an unincorporated area with several small communities and shares civic facilities with nearby Stanwood, including its school district, and post office.
Camano Island is home to two state parks, Cama Beach and Camano Island State Park, and several county and local parks.
In English, the island was named for 18th century Spain explorer Jacinto Caamaño. American explorer Charles Wilkes, during the Wilkes Expedition of 1838–1842, named it Macdonough Island in honor of Thomas Macdonough for his victory of the Battle of Lake Champlain during the War of 1812. Following this theme, Wilkes named the body of water between Camano and Whidbey Island after Macdonough's flagship the Saratoga. When Henry Kellett reorganized the official British Admiralty charts in 1847, he removed Wilkes' name Macdonough and bestowed the name Camano, which the Spanish explorer Francisco de Eliza had originally given to Admiralty Inlet in 1790. Wilkes' name Saratoga Passage was retained.
The island was known as Perry Island after the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott between several Indigenous peoples and the United States. The island was also called Crow Island during the early 20th century.
Prior to the population decline due to smallpox, there were likely many villages all along the island, and the Kikiallus were said to have 6 villages. Artifacts and human remains attributed to an old village were discovered by archaeologists at Cama Beach which were dated to 1,600 years before present. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were two known villages: a Kikiallus village at Utsalady (), and a Snohomish village at Camano Head ().;
Around 1820, a major landslide occurred at Camano Head that completely demolished the village there. It also created a tidal wave which destroyed another Snohomish village on Hat Island, and almost destroyed the main village of Hibulb. Hundreds of people died or drowned, including visitors to the village for the clamming season. After the catastrophic event, the site of Camano Head was never used as a village, but did continue to be used seasonally for clamming.
Camano Island continued to be under the Snohomish and Kikiallus until 1855, when, under the Treaty of Point Elliot, they ceded control of most of their lands, including Camano Island, to the United States. White settlement on the island began in the 1850s and it was included in the newly established Island County in 1853. The first major settlement on the island was at Utsalady (originally spelled Utsaladdy), which would be home to several sawmills. The first sawmill on the island was constructed by Thomas Cranney in 1858 and a school district was organized in 1862 to serve 17 students in a one-room One-room schools.
Cranney's sawmill at Utsalady was seized by the federal government in 1876 due to his bankruptcy and sold the following year to the Puget Mill Company, which enlarged it to handle 75,000 board feet per day. A plat for Utsalady was filed in 1891, with the town boasting three stores, two hotels, a telegraph line, and daily steamship service to Coupeville. The area had a large population of Chinese American and Norwegian immigrants who worked at the mill until the former were expelled by anti-Chinese riots in the 1880s. By the 1880 census, there were 112 residents in Utsalady and 74 Coast Salish peoples in other settlements on Camano Island. Following the Panic of 1893, the Utsalady sawmill was closed and left 125 residents unemployed, but five wood shingle mills were later opened to capitalize on the island's timber.
In 1943, the Puget Mill Company began developing its plots into residential subdivisions, ushering in the arrival of permanent summer homes on the island. The Stillaguamish River bridge to Stanwood was replaced in July 1950 by the Mark Clark Bridge and the island's roads were also improved by the state government. A new state park was established in 1948 and opened the following year after a day-long event in which 800 residents cleared the land to prepare for park development. In the 1950s, the island received its own post office, having previously been part of the Stanwood post office's delivery area, an organized fire department, and telephone service. Major population growth in the 1960s and early 1970s caused strain on the island's infrastructure, requiring the creation of a new urban planning and a satellite county courthouse.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the Camano CDP has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Approximately 83 percent of the shoreline around the island is privately owned.
The island has a wide array of native and migratory birds, including and . Migrating gray whales travel annually through the Saratoga Passage in March and April, making them visible from Camano Island.
During the Last Ice Age the island, sound and land surrounding the sound was covered by a mile thick sheet of ice. As temperatures rose the glacier receded, carving the island and leaving behind deposits of glacial till.
Camano Island also has 13 local parks maintained by the Island County government. The largest park, Camano Ridge, includes of inland protected forestland and hiking trails that were transferred from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources in 2003. At the north end of the island is Iverson Preserve, a beach and estuary with fishing and boat access. Barnum Point County Park on Port Susan was opened in August 2019 with of waterfront space, acquired with $750,000 in private donations through a local land trust.
Of the 7,456 households on Camano Island, 60.6% were Marriage living together, and 5.6% were cohabitating but unmarried. Households with a male householder with no spouse or partner were 13.9% of the population, while households with a female householder with no spouse or partner were 19.9% of the population. Out of all households, 18.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 51.4% had residents who were 65 years of age or older. There were 7,456 occupied housing units on Camano Island, of which 88.6% were owner-occupied and 11.4% were occupied by renting.
The median age of the island's residents was 56.7 years old for all sexes, 55.8 years old for males, and 57.4 years old for females. Of the total population, 16.3% of residents were under the age of 19; 3.5% were between the ages of 20 and 24; 16.3% were between the ages of 25 and 44; 30.7% were between the ages of 45 and 64; and 33.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the island's residents was 49.1% male and 50.9% female.
The island shares several of its services with neighboring Stanwood, including the Stanwood-Camano School District. The school district has two elementary schools on Camano Island, opened in the 2000s, while older students attend classes at Stanwood's schools. Sno-Isle Libraries, which serves Island and Snohomish counties, opened a public library inside a temporary space on Camano Island as part of a pilot program that began in 2007. A permanent library at Terry's Corner opened in August 2015 after voters on the island approved a $2.3 million bond measure to remodel a former restaurant.
Ferry connections to Coupeville and Everett existed historically, but the routes are no longer active. Local residents rejected a car ferry in 1999. A passenger-only Camano–Whidbey ferry has been proposed and studied by Island County.
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