Wednesday, January 18, 2012

About five inches of snow fell last night.  The red huckleberry pictured above has hundreds of tiny little buds ready to burst into leaf.  Hopefully, winter will be done with this sort of weather after tomorrow, and buds can begin to open without too much risk of damage.  Red huckleberries were prized by native Americans, who burned sections of the forest in order to keep the huckleberry plants healthy and plentiful.  The burned huckleberry bushes would shoot up from the roots, forming lush new plants, and the trees that would normally shade out the huckleberries would have to start over again.  I can think of only two red huckleberry bushes in the park, neither of which gets enough sun to produce much fruit.  In the future, since no one will be setting ELP on fire, red huckleberry may dwindle away.  If a major tree falls and clears a new opening in the canopy, that might provide an opportunity for a few new red huckleberries.  You can read about controlled burns for huckleberry yields here.

Although ELP won't be managed with controlled burns, given the proximity of houses on all sides, it will be a managed forest in many respects.  Humans will be choosing what species are planted in the park, and the forest will always rely on volunteers to control invasive species.  Sections of northwest forest have been managed by humans for ten thousand years.  Indians used natural processes, similar to wildfires started by lightning, to renew the forest so that pioneer species and plants that love sun could survive and flourish.  Human numbers were small enough, from 10,000 years ago to 150 years ago, that this management of sections of the forest still left the majority of the forest to progress on its usual course.  Those humans integrated themselves into the forest in ways that we cannot.  ELP would suffer if too many people chose to forage for food from native plants within the park.  We can integrate ourselves into the forest in ways that those first humans could not.  We can photograph the natural beauty found there, and we can learn all about the more than 365 species within the park.  Using science and technology, we can delve into the forest more than ever.

Today's walk took us from the beach to the library and back (4 miles), taking pictures all the way.  A gallery of images from ELP and from around Burien can be seen here.  Stone 18 is tucked in the crevice of the steps in the picture below.

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