Top Museums in Friday Harbor, United States

This place is amazing! Reading all the stories about the pods and the Southern Resident Orcas brought tears to my eyes. 🥹 Especially the pitiful ones separated away from their beloved family.
I loved the Native American story about Orcas.

It is a great place to educate kids early. And me being a 33 year old adult, loved it throughly too! If you’re in Friday Harbor, do not miss out on this museum!

Beautiful museum. Extremely informative.

Very educational, and inspiring. I could see a whale brain as an exhibit. That was just wow. Definitely recommend going to this place while at San Juan!

Amazing place, their exhibits are really well done and they’re varied. A lot of beautiful art and their gift shop has a lot of cool stuff, I had to be careful not to buy one of each.

Highly recommend if you’re visiting, live here, with a family or by yourself.

A couple small galleries to enjoy. The docent was very informative.

Really well done exhibits with lots of information about the orcas and other whales, and very moving stories of some of the individual Southern Resident Killer Whales. Employees were kind and knowledgeable, and I attended a fantastic free talk at the museum by Brad Hanson about the status and health of the Southern Resident Killer Whale pods. If you’re planning a trip to San Juan Island the Whale Museum is whale worth a visit.

GOOD AT EDUCATION BUT MUSEUM NEEDS AN UPGRADE
The people here are passionate about educating humans on these wonderful creatures and what can be done to protect them.
However, the museum itself looks like it's from 1992 with very little interactivity and, in this day and age, that's expected. I hope they receive funding to update, as this is the perfect spot to learn about whales and then go out and see them in their natural habitat.
On the plus side, the gift shop was good with a nice range of products.

GOOD THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
Fabulous small art gallery/museum. The layout has been beautifully designed and curated by Peter Lane, the paintings shine from the walls and I enjoyed my walk through. Worth a good hour of your time to stop and appreciate the fine artists on display. Lovely things for sale in gift shop.

I love this little museum. Even though I don't live on SJI, I have been a member since it opened, as I love their displays and the artists they feature. The three rooms of art are the "perfect bite." It is a lovely walk from the ferry and well worth it every time.

$10/adult. This is a super cool little museum with all kinds of information and displays that I learned a lot from! A quick stop I highly recommend.

Looks great but it was closed on a Friday. It said it was supposed to be open. Rather annoyed since we walked up from the ferry terminal specifically to go there.

So glad I visited the museum! It was so educational and had lots of information on whales and what we can do to help them. I definitely recommend stopping on your visit to San Juan island.

I really enjoyed how this museum narrows its focus for more impact. Currently, there are only three artists, and all are ceramicists, but all very different. My favorite is George Rodriguez' series on the Chinese zodiac, done with a Mexican twist with a series of collaborators. Patty Warashina's series she completed during the early years of covid displays how we all felt with humor and sympathy. And while Geoffrey Pagen's abstract tiles aren't my favorite, they are fascinating to look at. In all, worth seeking out whatever they have going on and well worth the walk up the hill from the ferry. There is a small parking lot if you're driving.

I really enjoyed the exhibit by the local artists. It's nice to live in a community with such talent.

Small museum. There was an excellent exhibition when we visited: 'African Twighlight'. Highly recommendable.

Quaint, interesting, well worth the visit. Not big at all, but well distributed and with thought provoking exhibits