WEEK 1: ORIENTATION AND DISCOVERY

Getting to Know San Juan Island National Historical Park

Our design studio is underway! We are all back from winter break, ready to get started in our re examination of the San Juan Island National Historic Park. On Wednesday, January 3^rd, we met for the first time as a group. After general introductions, we discovered that we are made up of 7 different disciplines: Landscape Architecture, Urban Design + Planning, Environmental Studies, Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management, Forestry, Museology and Architecture. Such a diverse group is full of potential!

In our first seminar session, we met 3 park staff members who provided background on the NPS, their roles within the organization, and introduced us to the site from their perspective. Park staff included Steve Gibbons - Acting Superintendent of the SJI-NHP, Mike Vouri - Chief of Interpretation, and Jerald Weaver - Chief of Integrated Resources. After a lively presentation session about the park's history, ecology, and the local community, we discussed a number of park priorities. Among the identified priorities were:

-- to provide opportunities for people of all ages to reach their own intellectual and emotional meaning while experiencing park resources

-- to emphasis the story of peaceful conflict resolution of the northwest boundary dispute

-- to address current and future natural resource needs

-- to consider the park's context through time and history

-- conservation and restoration of the historic structures including the earthworks

-- outreach and education to each generation, with a focus on stewardship

-- collaborating with the local community to achieve common goals

Our first week continued on Friday, with discussion of logistics for our first site visit! As we started our discussions, questions began to emerge from the previous presentation:

How can we understand the blurred boundaries between ideas of a neighborhood park and a national park? When and how are interventions appropriate when managing natural resources? How does the idea of “Deep Time” help negotiate historical and contemporary period? What sort of narrative and interpretive priorities are important for today and in the future? Beginning to understand the specific layout of the park, how do we reconcile the physical separation between the two halves of the park? What kinds of facilities are and will be necessary? And how can park experience become more legible and accessible for all?

After the discussions we went back to the studio and received our first assignment. We broke up into smaller groups and considered what the six preliminary design principles meant to us. We would further refine these definitions after our weekend visit to the park leaving at 6:45am the next day!

Finally, we were off to San Juan Island National Historic Park!

Orcas leapt on the horizon as we boarded the ferry, cappuccinos in hand, or so we imagined as we bundled into university vans at 6:45 Saturday morning to make the 9am ferry crossing to the island. Upon arrival, we dropped our gear off at Friday Harbor and headed out for American Camp at the south end of the island. We were greeted once again by Mike Vouri and Jerald Weaver and together we headed out into the rain for our first glimpse of the park.

An intense weekend of discovering the park unfolded, as we were able to experience the beauty of it first-hand. Our visit to the SJI-NHP this past weekend was breathtaking. Everyone was amazed by the wealth of natural beauty at each site, as well as by the simple remnants of the historic military buildings. We were all struck by the difference in physical character and feeling between the two sites. American Camp is seated in an expansive prairie, with open vistas that sweep across the grass, over the Puget Sound, and beyond towards the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula. There was a certain loneliness in the midst of this raw, stark landscape - but also a sense of immense possibility. How did the soldiers stationed at this site during their years of service experience it? And what about the experience of the Coast Salish people before them - what did they think of this immense landscape?

English camp had an entirely different location and feel at the North end of the island. It was wooded, enclosed, and protected in its primly neat cove. While we felt the wind and the open horizon at American Camp, at English Camp we walked through tall, dark Douglas firs and brilliantly colored Pacific Madrone trees. Finally the woodland opened onto a formal garden, neat white buildings and stately old maples. This site had a more established feeling - like a small village or community in comparison to the hard frontier of American Camp. The immense difference in topography, microclimate, and general character between the two sites was far more dramatic than we anticipated - opening up rich possibilities for exploration.

Having the privilege of Mike and Jerald’s personal tour of both American and English Camps (even on their days off) really gave us a rich understanding of the place and commitments people have here. With our initial first impressions, questions related to that unique experience have settled in which we’ll continue to explore through the quarter. Having the variety of disciplines to discuss these questions has made for some really interesting conversations and we are all looking forward to more of it.