Tag Archives: Lincoln Park

Forest Sketch

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This post was originally published in May, 2013

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On one of my forest walks, I came upon an elderly gentleman who was standing by the trail, gazing up at a gnarly bigleaf maple. It was one of those Seattle-summer days when the sun comes out unexpectedly, and after weeks of dismal gray, the world was in full-color once again. The whole forest was glowing.

As I passed, the man tipped his hat to me in a polite, old-fashioned way that seemed out-of-place in West Seattle. He must be from a foreign country. Or at least, a foreign time.

“You know what I wish?” he asked, smiling. “I wish I was an artist. I wish I could paint this!” He swept his hand across the lovely scene.

I stood with him for a moment admiring the lumpy, twisted old maple. The sunlight was filtering through the leafy canopy, falling in streaks against the brilliant moss-covered trunk. I imagined painting the tree, how I would drag brushloads of sap green over raw umber to capture the colors and play of light.

I was just about to share my art-thoughts with him when I noticed his eyes had teared up a little. “I want to remember this tree,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but by the time I get home, I’ll have forgotten. It’ll all be lost…like it never existed. If I was an artist, I could paint this and take it home with me. I’d have it forever.”

I realized we weren’t really talking about art at all, but about how it feels when things we love slip away. Was he afraid his beautiful world was disappearing…being erased into blankness?

He was still standing with the old maple when I continued on my walk. I hope he remembers his tree.

I wish I had painted it for him.

 

An acrylic sketch I did of a maple in one of Seattle’s beautiful forested parks. This one didn’t have a mossy trunk, but it was beautiful anyway.

 

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A sad note to end this story…

A few weeks ago, I learned that this same gentleman — a well-known park visitor — was knocked over and badly injured by a couple of (illegally) off-leash dogs in this same park.

Increasingly, people are treating urban natural areas as places to let their dogs run free. It is only a minority of the dogs that cause damage or injury, but that minority is causing serious problems—not only to other visitors but to the plants and wildlife that depend on these natural areas for survival. For that reason, ALL dogs need to be leashed where the law requires it. Unless everyone cooperates, those few trouble-makers will simply say “Everyone does it.”

Please. Leash. Your. Pets.

It is your responsibility.

 

Seattle Needs a Wild Idea

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(This post was originally published as a Guest Opinion for the Seattle Times on November 23, 2013)

 

I can walk down my front steps and 8 minutes later be surrounded by a forest of towering cedars, Douglas firs and mossy maples. It’s the same in many Seattle neighborhoods—you can be in full urban-mode one minute and in a forest or on a beach the next, feeling like you’ve been magically transported from the hard edges of city life. Spend a half-hour, and you’re renewed.

 

A watercolor sketch I did of a trail in Lincoln Park's forest.

A watercolor sketch I did of a trail in Lincoln Park’s forest. I came back to this spot a few days later and saw that a huge Parks Department truck had driven down this trail, running over the roots of the large maple on the right and shearing off the bark. Since when do we need heavy equipment on our park trails?

 

This is the Urban Wild. It’s found in Seattle Park Natural Areas, the gems of our city parks. It’s remnant wild nature right at our doorstep, and it’s a big reason people want to live here. We love our nature to death.

Trouble is, we’re starting to do just that. Imagine our forests trampled and fragmented, wildlife stressed, views marred, and peace disrupted. No one should take the Urban Wild for granted. Without formal protection, it won’t last.

In 1964, this same realization inspired the national Wilderness Preservation Act. National Parks and Forests were showing ecological wear and tear from overdevelopment and overuse, and people could see that without protection, wild nature would be lost.

We need similar vision now. Seattle should have a municipal version of the same idea: an Urban Wild measure to formally protect our park natural areas and provide secure funding to manage them using science-based urban-ecology standards. It’s important for wildlife, but also for the rest of us. All people, young and old, rich or poor, need daily contact with nature to be happy and healthy.

You might assume park natural areas are already protected. After all, birds sing in the trees, baby seals snooze on the beach, and the woods bustle with Green Seattle volunteers on their 20-year mission to restore urban forests. It’s all good, right?

Not necessarily. The budget cuts of the Great Recession bled Parks dry. They’ve done the best they can, but with insecure funding, the utilization of natural areas is inevitable. Stewardship is part of Parks’ mission, yet there is nothing to prevent development or encroachment on natural areas. Last year’s proposed plan to install a commercial canopy zipline in Lincoln Park’s forest is proof of that.

Traditionally, park policy has kept natural areas for passive-use, but times are changing—playing in the woods is not what it used to be. Mountain biking, ziplines, cyclocross, and foraging are some of the interests that lobby for access to the Urban Wild…and Parks is listening. (3) To some people, if it’s not high-speed, high-tech, high-impact, or high-volume, it might as well be a bowl of broccoli.

Still, most of us know that meaningful contact with nature tends to be slow, quiet, and reflective. It’s easier on the nature, too. A Parks Legacy Plan survey found most people use parks for simple walking (78%, tied with picnicking) (4). And yet, active sports and recreation groups—and the potential revenue they bring in—are energetic, organized, and vocal, and tend to dominate policy. Birds and squirrels, not so much.

But, we also pay heavily for recreational interests. Developed parkland is much more expensive to maintain than natural areas. Unlike Portland, with 70% of its total parkland left natural, in Seattle it’s the opposite: 86% of our parkland is developed or landscaped. Only 14% is natural.

It won’t take much before our remnant Urban Wild is all used up. Seattle is growing fast. Combine increased use, higher-impact recreation and encroachment with a densifying city, and the future Urban Wild will end up ecologically degraded and ugly.

City Council should create an Urban Wild Ordinance to permanently fund and protect natural areas in Seattle parks. They should be managed specifically for ecological processes—wildlife habitat, soils, water—but also to preserve an essential experience for people: the magic of the Urban Wild. Future generations are going to need this refuge even more than we do now. We’re leaving them with enough problems as it is.

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Please join me in the effort to preserve wild nature in Seattle! Even if you’re not from Seattle, you can be a voice for urban nature preservation around the world. In the coming generations, most people will be living in cities, so it will ultimately affect us all.

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Mythical Sea Creatures and Puget Sound Marine Mammals

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Last summer I wrote a post about a mysterious creature I saw one day in Puget Sound. At that time, my researching led me to conclude it was a group of porpoises—most likely Dall’s porpoises since they were the most common. The only other likely suspect, the harbor porpoise was thought to have long-since disappeared from Puget Sound, killed off by industrial pollution or entanglement in fishermens’ gill nets.

Since then, new information has revealed that harbor porpoises have made an extraordinary comeback in Puget Sound. Amazingly, they are now considered the most common marine mammal in the great Salish Sea!

So, I’m revising my conclusion: the mystery creature was most likely a group of three harbor porpoises.

Of course, we’ll never know for sure. It could have been a group of Dall’s porpoises out for a lazy swim off the shore of West Seattle. Or, maybe it really was a magical sea creature after all.

I’m not ruling anything out.

 

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(The following is a re-posting of my very first blog post)

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Sometimes I let my imagination run wild. Maybe I watched too many sci-fi thrillers when I was young, or maybe I just want to sprinkle a little artistic license on the ordinary world, but sometimes…I daydream up weird stuff. Just for the fun of it.

Once, I casually remarked to my husband as we walked on the beach, “Just imagine—right now—a giant mutant octopus emerging up out of Puget Sound! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

pugetsound

 

I should have known better than to say such a thing to a marine biologist!

But one day I actually saw something that seemed impossible. It was on the beach in West Seattle’s Lincoln Park—one of those typical Seattle days, with the water and the sky one solid slab of gray. No wind at all…the water smooth as glass. Not a soul in sight…no people, no boats, no ferries.

I had been walking along in the gray, thinking how nice it would be if water had no reflective surface. We already know what the sky looks like…why should the water mirror it for us? Wouldn’t it be better if Puget Sound was transparent from every angle, so we could see all the way to the bottom…see every bit of marine life in there?

Then a giant sea-serpent swam by right in front of me. Something straight out of Norse mythology. It had the familiar three-hump shape and the graceful rolling motion of a snake in the water. All that was missing was the arched head and the lashing tongue.

Lincoln Park

 

I watched it swim for at least ten minutes…three perfect dark humps rising smoothly in synchronized movements…one after the other. It went slowly, in playful figure-eights, spiraling out further and further off shore. And each time a hump rose and fell, it sprayed off a neat little fountain of water.

Daydreamer shifted into Naturalist. It must be three separate animals. Baby orca? Orcas are not unusual in Puget Sound—I’ve seen pods quite a few times. But no, orcas are lots bigger, and this was three creatures of similar size, not a baby with adults.

I ran through the list of common Puget Sound marine mammals: sea lions, harbor seals…no, they move differently. They swim for a while, then stop and poke their noses up and look around. Usually, they look right at you. Same with river otters. And I’ve never seem them swim synchronized like that.

I figured there had to be something I was forgetting, and of course there was: Dall’s porpoise. Dall’s porpoises are rare in Puget Sound, and I’ve never seen them here before. Plus, I’ve always thought of porpoises as swimming fast, darting through the water, not lazy like these were. And I didn’t remember seeing any dorsal fins. But they best fit the description, right down to the distinctive “rooster-tail” splashes they make.

dalls porpoises2

 

 

I feel a little silly about the whole sea-serpent thing. But it does make me feel better that my husband didn’t think of porpoises either. “Gosh, Dee,” he said when I described what I had seen and asked what he thought, “maybe it was a magical sea creature.”

I’ll never live down the ‘mutant octopus’ remark.

So now when I walk the beach, I look for porpoises. And I think about all the living things out there in Puget Sound. But I still wish water didn’t have a mirrored surface. Maybe then it would seem like more than just a body of water…maybe it would seem more like a place where actual creatures are trying to live. Maybe then, we would care more about protecting it.

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Forest Sketch

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On one of my forest walks, I came upon an elderly gentleman who was standing by the trail, gazing up at a gnarly bigleaf maple. It was one of those Seattle-summer days when the sun comes out unexpectedly, and after weeks of dismal gray, the world was in full-color once again. The whole forest was glowing.

As I passed, the man tipped his hat to me in a polite, old-fashioned way that seemed out-of-place in West Seattle. He must be from a foreign country. Or at least, a foreign time.

“You know what I wish?” he asked, smiling. “I wish I was an artist. I wish I could paint this!” He swept his hand across the lovely scene.

I stood with him for a moment admiring the lumpy, twisted old maple. The sunlight was filtering through the leafy canopy, falling in streaks against the brilliant moss-covered trunk. I imagined painting the tree, how I would drag brushloads of sap green over raw umber to capture the colors and play of light.

I was just about to share my art-thoughts with him when I noticed his eyes had teared up a little. “I want to remember this tree,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but by the time I get home, I’ll have forgotten. It’ll all be lost…like it never existed. If I was an artist, I could paint this and take it home with me. I’d have it forever.”

I realized we weren’t really talking about art at all, but about how it feels when things we love slip away. Was he afraid his beautiful world was disappearing…being erased into blankness?

He was still standing with the old maple when I continued on my walk. I hope he remembers his tree.

I wish I had painted it for him.

 

An acrylic sketch I did of a maple in Schmitz Park. It didn’t have a mossy trunk, but it was beautiful anyway.

 

 

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Ziplines Unzipped

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Exposing the underside of ziplines…

Is there a secretive plan underway to develop your local nature area?

I did this illustration for my Federation Forest Project. We were trying to promote meaningful nature connections for children.

 

Do you live in a community with a natural area…a place to escape the asphalt-covered and plastic-wrapped world? Somewhere close to your neighborhood, a peaceful place with trees and birds where you can go on a moment’s notice and get a quick dose of Vitamin N?

 

Ziplines are on the way

Your nature area may be targeted for development, and you may not even be aware of it.

Canopy zipline installations are being constructed in community parks and nature areas all across the country, and many people are being caught unaware—not even hearing of the plans until they are essentially done-deals.

 

West Seattle stopped a zipline plan

In my own neighborhood in West Seattle we were surprised last summer to learn of a Seattle Parks Department plan that had been in the works for over a year to develop Lincoln Park—a magical place of towering firs and cedars—with a zipline right in the middle of the remnant forest. Lincoln Park is considered by many to be the crown jewel of Seattle Parks—a place where you can wander through quiet forested paths and enjoy sweeping views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

When West Seattlites heard about the plan, we were furious.

Luckily, we were able to move fast and organize an opposition. At a community meeting of over 200 people, only one person spoke in favor of the plan. It only took one day for the Parks Department to announce they were shelving the plan for Lincoln Park. But, apparently they are still considering developing other parks with ziplines.

In many other places around the country, people are not so lucky. They either didn’t hear of the plan until it was too late, or were unable to convince their local officials of their opposition.

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“Hey! Ziplines are fun. Geez, you tree-huggers drive me crazy! You’re always against change and against fun! You care more about a few birds and bugs than you care about people!”

Not at all.

A true appreciation for nature is looking closely—not just taking a thrill ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe that people need nature in their everyday lives. My concern is not just for plants and animals, it’s also for people—especially children who need daily exposure to nature—and for future generations. They will be living in a very different world where nature will be a lot harder to find than it is now. We should preserve as much as we can for them. They are going to need it.

 

8 Reasons to think twice about ziplines

 

1. High-Cost/Low Return

Only wealthier people will be able to afford zipline admission price. Many communities that are struggling with budget woes will be seduced by the idea of easy money from ziplines, but in West Seattle’s Lincoln Park, the city was only to receive a tiny sum in exchange for selling off the rights to a rare, prized nature park to a private company.

2. High-Impact for wildlife

The tree canopy is often a last refuge for birds and other creatures. When we extend our footprint up into the trees, we are intruding into one of the last places many species can find the habitat they need. When ziplines are installed, areas are cleared of trees and understory, habitat is fragmented, and fences are built.

3. High-Impact for people

Noise, crowds, parking congestion. Lots of screaming. Everyone screams as they zip.

4. Only for a select few

Sure, they’re fun, but only for young, able-bodied people. What about older people, the disabled, or children too young to ride?

5. Not a true nature experience

Zipline development is eco-tainment masquerading as a nature experience. It’s more of an amusement park experience than a true connection with nature.

6. Not a challenge course

True ropes courses or challenge courses are about problem-solving and group cooperation. Ziplines are simply hooking up to a device and letting go. It’s a thrill ride, not a challenge course.

7. Not what we should be leaving to future generations

In the coming generations, people will be living in more crowded communities and their opportunities to travel to distant nature parks may be much more limited than what we enjoy today. We need to employ foresight to leave them the nature they will need—close to where they live. Nature parks were left to us, and we have the responsibility to preserve the legacy for others.

8. Planned in secret. Makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?

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4 easy things you can do to help preserve your natural area

1. Be proactive. Contact your local Parks Department or nature area and ask them if they are considering a zipline.

2. Form a Social Media page devoted to preserving your natural area—if there is a zipline plan in the works, make it known to others.

3. Form a Friends Group

4. Promote true connections with nature in your community. Visit your nature area, take photos, share with friends.

 

What do you think? Have you had an experience with a zipline proposal in your favorite nature area?