Recently sighted near Shark’s Reef: volunteers with grins and workgloves

Array

special to Weekly

by Joan Carter

If you walk the trail to the beach and notice fresh cedar bark mulch, you can thank the project team from the American Hiking Society which worked there in mid-June.

The term “work” is relative, however, to these folks. Work, to them, means getting away from normal summer gardening, swimming, and picnics and flying to Seattle from Connecticut and New York State, or by car from eastern Washington and the Oregon wine country. Trails need ‘sprucing up’? Just call. Nick Teague, BLM-Spokane District and a Lopez resident for several years requested his first crew back in 2006 to dig in and ‘feel the twinge.’ Other agencies got wind of the good results and the crew are bona fide ‘floaters’ – and sail to Friday Harbor and tiny islands to tackle trail maintenance and other related tasks.

This unique island-dotted locale is just one of 69 regions to which the American Hiking Society has sent volunteers in 2009. And what motivated these volunteers to choose the San Juan Islands project? “I was at a Volunteer Fair in Washington D.C. and the recruiter said ‘You’ve gotta go there!’” said one couple from the East Coast. “I’ve gotta get my ferry boat fix,” said the Oregonian. “Gotta ride my bike!” said the eastern Washington resident, training for a long-distance race.

Get outside. Everyone can volunteer – no experience necessary. “Trail stewardship projects in exciting and diverse locations around the country,” proclaims the Volunteer Vacations brochure. “Just bring your gear and a willingness to get dirty.”

What our ever-smiling BLM host left out at the orientation on June 20 at the Odlin County Park shelter was the part about how we’d be hacking back vegetation — notably the invasive sweet brier at the south end of Lopez. He offered not chain saws but gardener’s pruning shears, crosscut saws, and loppers. That kind of effort was not a simple ‘get dirty’ task but instead a full body workout, whittling down non-native plants from 20 feet down to the soil. For the AHS work crew, this was only a warm-up for the week.

Doug McCutcheon picked the crew up at Friday Harbor the next day to swing axes, pulaskis, and handle a beastly rock hammer at the Westside Preserve (SJCLB). “All work and no play” does not warm the heart of an AHS volunteer. No, indeed. Throw in a pod of orcas swimming by — preferably during the afternoon break — and the perfect photo op brings the work to a momentary halt. Mix with one part marine biology at Deadman’s Cove during low tide over the lunch hour and one part Olympics Range from the worksite and you’ve got a crew that’s hooked on the San Juans. Snap a group shot of the crew with the Haro Straits behind, offer them fresh chocolate chip cookies, ripe strawberries, and soft drinks — and Doug’s crew is smiling for hours!

The crew also ‘chipped in’, literally as well as figuratively, to spread cedar chips on a forest trail with Ranger Jodie Snapp at Odlin Park. Then at Hummel Lake on a rainy Wednesday morning, Preserve Steward Tim Clark led the crew in leveling a new trail that the Lopez Island Conservation Corps had laid out. As the volunteers quickly learned, the sun was shining behind those clouds, and burst forth upon the group relaxing at lunch near the lake with fresh Lopez berries, cherries, and sweet rolls. On Thursday, we pulled away from the Odlin dock as Nick waved goodbye and we sailed off to Jones Island with State Park Ranger Chris Guidotti at the helm of the state park ‘yacht.’ The sun sparkled on the water as a white-headed juvenile bald eagle soared overhead. Back in our home towns, two-ounce songbirds are the norm!

Lucky Lopezians. Lucky us. As we ferried back to America, we thanked Nick, Doug, Tim, Chris, and Jodie for showing us how much fun ‘work’ can be. Another volunteer crew will assemble again next year. Some, maybe all, of this year’s crew will be part of that group. Several folks have come to Lopez repeatedly, and they each have noted the unique ‘Lopez Wave’. By week’s end, they’ve made it their own. And what’s ‘the wave?’ It’s the warm welcome new folks receive when they become part of this island paradise – even if only for a week.