Blue Jay is an unincorporated community in the San Bernardino Mountains of San Bernardino County, California, situated within the San Bernardino National Forest and about a mile from the southwestern shore of Lake Arrowhead. It sits along State Route 189, the main mountain corridor linking the lakeside communities to the Rim of the World Highway and, ultimately, down the mountain to the Inland Empire below. Although small, Blue Jay functions as a practical and commercial hub for the Lake Arrowhead area, earning it the nickname "the gateway to Lake Arrowhead." The community has grown up alongside Lake Arrowhead for more than a century. In the 1920s the Blue Jay Ferry served the lake, and Blue Jay developed as an extension of the Arrowhead resort landscape, with its own village center taking shape over the decades. The name is tied to the region's birdlife and the settlement founded by early mountain residents. In 1935 the first ice-skating rink was built in Blue Jay, an enterprise that later evolved into the Ice Castle International Training Center, a well-known figure-skating training facility in the mountains. Today Blue Jay is best known for Blue Jay Village, a compact commercial district with a grocery store, shops, restaurants, a bank, and the Lake Arrowhead Library, which serves the mountain communities. It is also the administrative home of the Rim of the World Unified School District, whose campuses serve students from Crestline, Lake Arrowhead, Running Springs, and the surrounding high country. The community hosts the Blue Jay Christmas parade and jazz festival. Because Blue Jay is unincorporated, it is governed by the County of San Bernardino and shares services with the surrounding mountain communities, attracting year-round families and part-time cabin owners drawn by the pines and the lake.