I recently spent a week on the Olympic Peninsula, exploring the wild north coast during the week of the fall equinox. I was lucky to score a combination of sunshine and a noticeable lack of summer crowds.
The biodiversity that writer and naturalist Tim McNulty draws attention to in the new book “Salmon, Cedar, Rock & Rain: Washington’s Olympic Peninsula” was on glorious display throughout my visit.
Backpacking the famed Ozette Triangle, I watched the last sunset of summer sink into the Pacific Ocean to the clamorous chorus of dozens of barking sea lions. I saw weathered petroglyphs of faces, boats and abstract shapes chiseled into a rocky headland more than 500 years ago by the Makah people. I slept on the sand to the sound of booming surf and seagulls.
One evening as I approached my campsite at Sandy Point, a rotund black bear emerged from the forest fringe, yawned, stretched and then began browsing the shoreline for dinner, slurping up long strands of colorful seaweed as she ambled along (away from my camp, thankfully).
In a moment I’ll never forget, I witnessed from a single vantage point a raft of harlequin ducks bobbing on the surf, chittering oystercatchers patrolling the rocks, brown pelicans gliding and diving offshore, the heads of a dozen curious seals, a sun-sparkling pod of porpoises on the move, and two back-floating sea otters — the first time I’ve ever seen them in the wild.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve been fortunate to hike next to Roosevelt elk in the Hoh’s Hall of Mosses and soak in the steamy waters of Olympic Hot Springs. I’ve paddled across Lake Ozette, ogled psychedelic tide pools near La Push, and met some of the oldest and largest trees in North America in the Quinault rainforest.
Writer and naturalist Tim McNulty will talk about his new book “Salmon, Cedar, Rock & Rain: Washington’s Olympic Peninsula” Friday, Oct. 27 at Village Books in Fairhaven. Indigenous voices from different tribes that have inhabited and stewarded the lands of the biodiverse peninsula are also represented. (Photo courtesy of Mary Morgan)
Every visit has been its own unique adventure, offering me and my companions immersions into wild and primeval places.
I’m sharing my own story to draw attention to this kaleidoscope of different environments and rich tapestry of biodiversity that McNulty and others honor in “Salmon, Cedar, Rock & Rain.”
Published by Braided River, a conservation imprint of Seattle’s nonprofit Mountaineers Books, this coffee-table tome also features written contributions by David Guterson, Fawn Sharp, Lynda V. Mapes, Loni Greninger (Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe), Gary Morishima (Quinault Indian Nation), Maria Parker Pascua (Makah Tribe), Francine Swift (Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe), Wendy Sampson and Jamie R. Valadez (both Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe).
The book offers several complementary approaches to understanding and appreciating the Olympic Peninsula.
McNulty is a master of natural history interpretation — he is also the author of “Olympic National Park: A Natural History Guide” — and a veteran of many conservation efforts in the region. Guterson shares stories of early explorers, settlers and writers of the region, while Mapes provides snapshots of curiosities such as national champion forest giants, First Foods, sea otter recovery and the “One Square Inch of Silence.”
The chorus of Indigenous voices from different tribes that have inhabited and stewarded the lands of the Olympic Peninsula since time immemorial — generously sharing their people’s histories, stories and time-wizened perspectives — add immeasurable value to the book’s initiative.
So too do the abundance of vivid, captivating photographs by John Gussman, Pat O’Hara, Gemina Garland-Lewis, Larry Workman, Art Wolfe and others.
All these voices blend together to create a celebratory portrait of a diverse landscape we are lucky to have in our backyard.
The book concludes with a survey of recent and ongoing conservation efforts on the peninsula. McNulty describes several varied efforts that are “working to restitch the ecological fabric of the peninsula, repair and reconnect habitats, and help creatures and processes become more resilient in the face of climate change.”
He highlights restoration of the Skokomish watershed and Dungeness estuary, extending protection for the Hoh River, removal of non-native mountain goats, the reintroduction of fishers and — one of the biggest ecological restoration successes in our nation’s history — the removal of the dams on the Elwha River.
What lies ahead for the Olympic Peninsula?
“I hope we can maintain and restore the full mix of species and ecological processes of the Olympic ecosystem as we enter into the unknown future of human-caused global warming,” McNulty said in an email. “The ecosystem and human communities have been through profound disruptions in the past. The peninsula’s remarkable diversity has seen us through. My hope is that it can do so again.”
Tim McNulty will discuss “Salmon, Cedar, Rock & Rain” at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27 at Fairhaven’s Village Books, 1200 11th St. Please register in advance at villagebooks.com.
