“What a day! I’m impressed and encouraged by the hardy people who live on this island, and how much they care about their public lands. People from three to seventy-three volunteered, worked, learned and had fun doing it. Rain? What rain?” says Tim Clark with the San Juan County Land Bank, who participated in the third annual National Public Lands Day celebration at Watmough Bay on Sept. 28. More than sixty people braved the gray skies, wind, and occasional rain to enjoy and give back to their public lands for this year’s celebration.

Visitors participated in a wide range of activities: stewardship projects including the removal of invasive holly from Chadwick Marsh and a beach clean up at Point Colville, an interpretive talk on the history of public lands, and a mushroom walk and talk. Volunteer Andre Entermann, who worked at Chadwick Marsh with his son, says, “I was pleased to hear that there was less holly to remove this year then last.  This helped me realize how these work parties make a difference.  The crew was very positive and well equipped.   My four year old son was able to spot holly better than I was, when he was not getting stuck in creeping blackberries.” The beach clean-up team at Point Colville removed approximately 100 lbs. of garbage from the beach and deposited the debris at the dump. Fifteen visitors listened, learned, and asked questions about public lands during an interpretive talk by BLM employee Randall Rishe who says, “I had a wonderful time, and being able to give a program with the perfect backdrop of Watmough Bay was great fun!” The mushroom walk, led by Madrona Murphy of Kwiaht, was very popular and lasted for several hours. Heather Gladstone, one of the mushroom walk participants, says, “I had a wonderful time at the NPLD event.  I was impressed with the wealth of knowledge shared about the local plants and mushrooms, and enjoyed learning more about the history of the area.  In addition, it was a lot of fun getting to know and work with a variety of Lopezians, off-islanders, and BLM folks.”

This year’s NPLD event expanded to include more partner organizations and had a wider geographic scope than past celebrations. Event coordinator Sara Waugh says, “I was excited that partner organizations helped spread the message of National Public Lands Day to a broader audience, there were NPLD events on other islands in addition to Lopez., and there were visitors from as far away as Bellingham this year!” On Orcas Island, Dan and Denise Wilk of Eclipse Charters shared NPLD information with participants during their outings on Saturday. Colin Dougherty with Cascadia Kayaks on Lopez Island also shared NPLD information with customers, increasing awareness of this special day. NPLD events spread to Patos Island and other outer islands this year. Keepers of the Patos Light had a NPLD work party that completed 88 hours of service on Patos Island, including trail maintenance, beach clean-up, and campsite cleaning. Last, BLM staff and a volunteer traveled to Patos, Blind and Posey Islands, Turn Point, Kellett Bluff, and McConnell Rocks to put up new San Juan Islands National Monument signs in conjunction with National Public Lands Day.

Event sponsors were: the Bureau of Land Management, Cascadia Kayaks, Keepers of the Patos Light, Kwiaht, Orcas Island Eclipse Charters, Lopez Community Trails Network, Lopez Island Conservation Corps, San Juan County Land Bank, and San Juan Preservation Trust.