Today marks the two 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 Stillaguamish, the Duwamish, the Suquamish, the Sammamish–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, native ecosystem where native insects, fish, birds, and mammals, including humans, can be sustained and thrive for generations to come.
This project is about many things, perhaps as many unique things as there have been volunteers tending our restoration areas at Wallace Swamp Creek Park over the past two years. One of my reasons for working in the park is salmon, a keystone species and bellwether of watershed health. Pacific Northwest salmon are threatened, and we need them–for culture, for sustenance, for the way they hold our ecosystems together–as much as they need our help recovering them. Every bit of watershed health we restore helps salmon recovery efforts.
I would love to hear your reason(s) for working in the park.
Much has happened in the past year. Sno-King Watershed Council officially brought the project under their wing, giving us access to liability insurance (we’re growing up!) and their 501c3 non-profit status. We’ve started in on a second restoration area, tackling another enormous tangle of Himalayan blackberry (and knotweed, holly, and scotch broom!), and we continue to visit our first restoration area to monitor and maintain our work. The pandemic has given us the unexpected gift of keeping the groundlessness of our situation front and center, reminding us to hold at once tightly to our overarching vision and loosely to our progress toward those big goals.
I remain grateful to every person who has touched this project in any way–from my co-founders, Linda Phillips and Kenmore City Councilmember Melanie O’Cain; to the City of Kenmore, especially city staff Stephanie Brown, Quinn Proffitt, and Jennifer Gordon; to Kenmore City Council; to those who have dropped off cardboard; to those who have cheered us on with a wave or a friendly hello as they’ve driven or wandered by. I am grateful most especially for the community who has gathered month after month, through seasons, though all kinds of weather, through this wretched pandemic, for showing up and showing me the resilience, joy, and connection that exists in our community and in me. Without each other, where would we be?
Thank you for being in this work with me. I’m excited to keep going with you.
With love and gratitude,
Tracy Banaszynski