Camas Prairie heritage too rich for development | Guest Column

By members of the Native Connections Action Group
Posted 1/15/25

 

 

As members of Native Connections Action Group and the číčmǝhán Trail Team, we worked with the Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes …

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Camas Prairie heritage too rich for development | Guest Column

Posted

 

 

As members of Native Connections Action Group and the číčmǝhán Trail Team, we worked with the Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes to share their history in qatáy with the Port Townsend community and visitors. We write to urge you to protect and preserve the Port Townsend Camas Prairie Golf Park as open public space for future generations.

A Tribal Ceremony, witnessed by over 1,000 people marked the dedication of the číčmǝhán Trail in June 2019. Two important Indigenous cultural sites are located on the Golf Park. Key to the history of Port Townsend is Sentinel Rock, where Chief číčmǝhán signaled the state of his negotiations between the Indians and the settlers when war was imminent and ultimately avoided. 

The second cultural site, the Camas Prairie, honors the culture and traditional values of the historical indigenous community. For thousands of years, the S’Klallam and Chemakum peoples maintained the camas prairie, ensuring an abundant food source by clearing weeds and trees, which also supported hunting and foraging. This prairie land has historical significance.

The Golf Park encompasses 58 culturally valuable acres of rolling hills and wetlands including a pond, not just the 1.4-acre remnant of the Kah Tai Prairie adjacent to the clubhouse drive. Such prairie ecosystems are rare, and this park provides valuable habitat for local flora and fauna. It serves as an educational resource for teachers and students as well as a model for preserving public parks, open space and habitat.

Many in the community were dismayed when the City Council began considering the southwest corner of the golf park for housing, especially after the Groundswell Landscape Architecture consultation highlighted the importance of preserving open space.

The expanded proposal to re-zone more than 9 acres along Blaine Street for housing would further intrude on valuable public open space. While we recognize the need for housing, a more suitable plan exists on the west side of San Juan Avenue, where developers are working on well-designed, multi-family housing that can accommodate more people on less land.

We urge the Council to support the efforts of the Friends of Port Townsend Golf Park, the Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Native Plant Society, Native Connections Action Group/číčmǝhán Trail Team, and others in preserving this land for the next seven generations to enjoy its history, native plants, and health-sustaining recreational opportunities.

The land at the Golf Park is not a commodity; in seven generations, our descendants will thank us for preserving this precious public open space.

Submitted by Celeste Dybeck, Lys Burden, Jo Blair, Maria Mendes, Connie Ross, Luzi Pfenninger, Amy Hepburn, Native Connections Action Group, číčmǝhán Trail Team, Quimper Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.