Parks Report Part One

The trails and open spaces on the island are pop­u­lar with both res­i­dents and vis­i­tors, but they don’t just appear out of nowhere. Where does the mon­ey come from to keep them open? What can mem­bers of the pub­lic do to help? This is the first in a series of reports by Louise Dus­trude try­ing to answer those questions.

A view on Young Hill, part of English Camp National Historical Park - Louise Dustrude photo

The Nation­al Park

Elex­is Fredy has been super­in­ten­dent of San Juan Island Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park for just over a year now, and the park has few­er peo­ple work­ing today than when she came.

The prob­lem is two-fold. Employ­ees who trans­ferred out or retired last year can­not be replaced because of a three-month hir­ing freeze imposed by the new pres­i­dent, and she says that’s com­pound­ed by the long-term dif­fi­cul­ty in hir­ing peo­ple “because of the lack of afford­able hous­ing on the island.” 

Until recent­ly the park had 21 employ­ees, and now there are eight and a half year-round, plus two more full-time in the summer.

Some help is pro­vid­ed by vol­un­teers. There are four retired cou­ples who come in the sum­mer to camp in their RVs and act as park hosts. There are sev­er­al youth groups with up to 50 young peo­ple who help with trail build­ing and main­te­nance — but they need adults to guide and super­vise their work.

Lex would like to draw on the exper­tise of islanders for:

• Help with fundrais­ing for the park
• Help in secur­ing edu­ca­tion­al and inter­pre­tive funding
• Cre­at­ing exhibits
• Arrang­ing spe­cial events in the park, “such as a con­cert and bar­be­cue on the parade ground”
• Activ­i­ties for families
• Not just fundrais­ing for the park, but also fundrais­ing for oth­er orga­ni­za­tions using park facilities

“We don’t have base­line data for how peo­ple use the pub­lic spaces in the coun­ty,” she said. She and oth­er “ter­res­tri­al man­agers” here from the state park, the coun­ty park, the land bank, and the nation­al mon­u­ment are plan­ning to gath­er detailed data in May through Octo­ber, using vol­un­teers who are will­ing to be con­sis­tent, reli­able, and unobtrusive.

For­est health data also needs to be col­lect­ed by knowl­edge­able vol­un­teers. The park hopes to hire sci­en­tists to design the ques­tions, and have vol­un­teers to col­lect answers.

Anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty Lex sees would be if peo­ple are will­ing to rent hous­es to the park so that in turn they can be offered to new employ­ees. She sug­gest­ed some peo­ple who have been rent­ing to tourists through airbnb might be tired of the inces­sant work required and might pre­fer a five-year lease with the park.

If you have any ideas you would like to share, please leave a com­ment below.

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