The Full Story
Connecting to the Land at Bayshore and Inspiring Kids Preserves
We are fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the country. From the oak-dotted prairie and estuary habitat of Bayshore Preserve to the upland forest and wetlands at Inspiring Kids Preserve, each of these places offers a unique but quintessential Pacific Northwest experience.
At both preserves,
this campaign aims to:
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Improve functionality and safety at both preserves by relocating and designing new entrances and parking areas for cars and school buses.
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Accommodate individuals and groups comfortably in all seasons by constructing an open-air gathering pavilion at the Inspiring Kids Preserve.
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Remove barriers for people with mobility challenges, and those not able to travel farther than a short distance, by designing and constructing an all-persons trail so that all may experience these beautiful and highly diverse properties.
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Support more people on class field trips by enhancing the trail systems to be able to withstand heavier foot traffic and wheelchairs.
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Provide greater access while protecting fragile habitats through sustainably designed and constructed viewpoints, boardwalks, and bird blinds. Engage with small groups of people of all ages and interests by developing strategically placed learning stations.
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Encourage our youngest visitors to use their time in nature to develop motor skills, social skills, and imagination by constructing nature play areas.
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Provide places for rest and contemplation by installing benches and building viewing platforms to provide a unique perspective on the landscape.
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Tell the story of human history and ongoing restoration through interpretive signage on both preserves.
The Public Access Fund
Creating a Sustainable Future
Each visitor leaves a footprint; but footprints mean that the landscape is available for us. Our vision is to create places where people can visit safely and delight in nature. This means constant care and attention to improvements. Maintaining trails in good repair, clearing downed branches and trees from storms promptly, and addressing mishaps that are bound to arise requires dependable funding and resources. We want preserve visitors today and visitors forever to have the same welcoming experience. The Connecting to the Land Campaign will grow our Public Access Fund large enough to keep these preserves barrier-free and in tip-top condition for generations. At Capitol Land Trust, we conserve land in perpetuity. So planning for things with long time horizons is in our DNA. Access and enrichment improvements are large investments, and our goal with the Fund is to create the capacity to do the work, to be prudent stewards of all the resources that we manage.
Funding Will Provide
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Properly graded and mulched trail systems during the year
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Remediate public hazards such as snags and dangling limbs
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Replace or upgrade educational materials and infrastructure
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Replace weathered wayfinding signs and interpretive kiosks
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Ensure parking areas remain functional and free of obstacles
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Maintain public restroom facilities
Inspiring Kids Preserve
The Inspiring Kids Preserve combines Harmony’s farm and the neighboring Stillman tree farm for a total of 113 acres. Since Harmony first placed her property in a Conservation Easement, we have made a series of thoughtful restorations that honor her dream and reverence for this land. Towering cedars and firs, diverse upland forests and vegetative communities, freshwater wetlands, springs and salt marshes, pocket estuaries, as well as small streams and inlets cover much of this preserve. Diverse and abundant wildlife includes many species of birds, beavers and otters, coyotes, deer, porcupines, and more. It’s these inspiring natural features that make the property a fantastic place for an outdoor learning laboratory. Inspiring Kids Preserve lies within a 20-minute bus ride of 32 schools in Thurston County. This makes it a place not only rich in educational opportunity, but one that can be scaled up once access is improved. North Thurston Public Schools would like all their 1,000+ third graders to have hands-on field experiences at Inspiring Kids Preserve. Having access to a site that can serve this number of students over the course of the school year can provide hands-on experience that will inspire young minds to pursue science and technical careers. Also playing an important role are educational equity and the removal of some barriers that have prevented equal opportunities to learn in an outdoor environment.
Bayshore Preserve
This 78-acre peninsula preserve is located 12 miles north of Shelton on the shore of Oakland Bay. Since first being formed by a major stream deposit created by the glaciers as they retreated 17,000 years ago, this land has gone through many changes. Once home to a large tribal village of the ancestors of the Squaxin Island Tribe. Following European settlement, this property has been a homestead, sawmill, and most recently a golf course. Johns Creek flows through the property and empties into the Oakland Bay estuary. Its cold, clear, clean waters provide prime spawning habitat for chum salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout. Restoration projects undertaken since purchase by CLT are returning this property to a more natural state, which includes a pristine saltmarsh, open grassy areas, oak woodland savannah, and upland forest and riparian habitat. Since being conserved in 2014, Bayshore Preserve has been open to the public, and is one of our most-visited sites—a place where salmon return each year, students learn about estuaries and wildlife, and families come to explore the beauty of South Puget Sound.
Learning Laboratories
Collaboration is a core value of CLT because it leverages and multiplies our resources. Our partnerships allow us to be more than the sum of our parts. Our partners are a critical element of our success: they are experts at working with their constituents, and our goal is to provide sustainable access to the land where they can further their work. Organizations such as Puget Sound Estuarium, Wa- Ya Outdoor School, the Olympia Mountaineers, The Evergreen State College, Northwest Youth Corps, Black Hills Audubon Society, and many others deliver educational activities on Capitol Land Trust preserves. With increased accessibility and fewer barriers, a wider variety of community partners will be able to incorporate the natural world found on our preserves into their programs to better serve their constituents. Additionally, it is an exciting challenge for us to collaborate with organizations that serve people who historically have had limited access to outdoor activities and conserved properties.
Funding Will Provide
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Expand programs with schools and higher education institutes in Thurston and Mason Counties
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Expand partnerships with other non-profits that can deliver programming to their constituents on our preserves
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Expand partnerships with groups that have had limited opportunities in the past for enjoying nature and learning about its importance for a quality environment
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Develop a volunteer preserve docent program
