The visit to the Quinault Indian Nation and the Coast was very interesting. Being on the front lines of the effects of climate change and being in danger of flooding from massive storms and sea level rise, everyone was working quite hard to find possible answers. An entire town needed to be moved in order to be prepared for a possible massive flooding event that would destroy the town, that could happen at anytime. There have been many restrictions and difficulties they have ran into while trying to relocate. There are many poorly written policies from day’s past that are still in affect, even though they are severely out-dated, that is making land acquisition and use very difficult. One big one is the use of Trusts. Trusts give a handful of people the rights to the land. Works in practice, but when you need to build or use the land, ALL of the Trustees must agree on the usage of the land. Meaning, if even ONE of them says no, the whole thing is down the drain. And the Trusts run through the family too. After many generations, there are many Trustees that need to agree, in turn making it harder to get land.
The Coastal area was very calming and interesting. I accidentally forgot my water bottle on the first day, so I ended up being near delirious at the end of the day. But it didn’t ruin my experience of the beach. We went to Rialto Beach on the first day and inspected a man-made jetty. The jetty was built as a barrier for the port of the nearby town and it also caused a river to adjust its flow in order to reach the ocean. Near the end of the day, we headed to the other end of the beach and saw some tide pools. Many classmates were impressed and really liked the tide pools, but from the tide pools that I have seen in the past, these were pretty lackluster. There wasn’t a lot of life other than a couple of Sea Stars and a whole lot of Sea Grass. On Day 2, we visited the Dickey River, one of the tributaries to the Quinalut River, which was in the Olympic National Forest. It was a rather relaxing visit, me with water bottle in hand and sun burns from the first day. Our second site that day was Second Beach, which was much nicer than Rialto Beach. The sand was much softer and the waves were less intense, meaning it was protected from some of the wave action.
My group made a blog page about it, which you can visit here.
Group Members include, Randa Pearce, Ali Johnson, Marissa Scoville, and Myself.
Here are my field notes from our adventures.
