Today marks the three year anniversary of Swamp Creek Habitat Restoration Project.
We do this work on the ancestral land of the first peoples of this region — the Coast Salish, the Muckleshoot, the Duwamish, the Sammamish, the Stillaguamish, the Suquamish —peoples who have stewarded this land since time immemorial and who are very much alive and present as good stewards of the land to this day. It is with gratitude to and because of them that we have the honor of tending to this land with the hope of restoring it to a healthy ecosystem where native insects, fish, birds, and mammals, including humans, can be sustained and thrive for generations to come.
We grew our human family this past year as more and more of us emerged from the cocoon of our homes and pandemic pods. The connections have felt easy and meaningful. We learned to identify English hawthorn, common teasel, and black locust, and once we did, we saw them everywhere. We are removing them, or making plans to do so, as we go. We continued to maintain our original restoration area and made good progress on our second, moving as far north along 73rd Ave NE as we are comfortable until we determine the location of the park property line. While we wait, we are working into the park from 73rd and battling back another tangle of blackberry behind our original restoration area. We planted the first tree to come officially from the habitat restoration project — a volunteer Douglas fir from the yard of a friend who knew the tree would need more space as ki grew. We grew. So much.
My gratitude to project co-founders Deputy Mayor Melanie O’Cain and Kenmore resident Linda Phillips for the vision and faith it took to manifest this project; to the City of Kenmore for permission to work on City land; to City Manager Rob Karlinsey and City Staff Stephanie Brown, Quinn Proffitt, Jennifer Gordon, Justin El, and Rita Moreno for their behind-the-scenes support; and to Sno-King Watershed Council, this project’s non-profit heart and home, with special gratitude to Eric Adman and Jeremy Jones for their mentorship and support. My gratitude also to my mother and my kiddo — they’ve either been out digging in the dirt with me or home together so I could be clipping and digging myself.
If not for the individuals of all ages who have volunteered their time, we would not have built what we have over these past three years — a place of community and belonging, where we are embraced just as we are, where we learn and grow together, where we are healing ourselves as much as we are healing the land. We are all so needed in this work and everyone who has ever volunteered these past three years is permanently etched in my heart.
Without us, I could do little. With us, so much is possible. Here’s to another three years.
Love and peace.
Tracy Banaszynski