Resource management plan adopted; implementation is next
The San Juan Islands National Monument is entering a new phase in its management of more than 1,000 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in the Salish Sea archipelago.
A new advisory council is expected to be appointed soon to guide implementation of the National Monument’s land management plan, which was developed over a period of several years and released on March 11. And the council could have more members from the communities with the most historical knowledge of this place: the islands’ First Peoples.
Included in the plan:
- The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) will turn over 189 acres of its lands to BLM, including Cattle Point Light, Turn Point Light and the Patos Island Light Station.
- BLM will work with tribal nations, other agencies and the public to restore native plant populations and enhance the extent of grasslands and shrublands, and to enhance habitat for federally listed or candidate wildlife species that are primarily using nonnative host plants.
- BLM will consult with tribal nations, tribal historic preservation officers and the Washington State Historic Preservation Office to identify and protect cultural resources — including sacred sites, burial sites and cultural objects and landscapes — and will maintain and improve access to those lands for the exercise of treaty rights and traditional cultural practices.
- BLM will work with its partners to restore, rehabilitate and maintain existing structures — as well as Coast Salish cultural resources — at Cattle Point, Turn Point and Patos Island, and to build new structures to support education and interpretation.
- Camping is allowed at designated sites on Blind, Posey and Patos islands; dispersed camping elsewhere within the National Monument is prohibited.
- Recreational access to 29 acres of small islands and 10 acres of rocks is prohibited because of their sensitive cultural and ecological resources.
- Launching and landing of drones for scientific or commercial use requires a permit from the Bureau of Land Management.
- The discharge of firearms and use of bows within the National Monument is prohibited except as associated with lawful hunting practices.
- Use of motorized vehicles and bicycles is prohibited on designated roads.
The management plan does not include San Juan Island National Historical Park, which is part of the National Park Service although there is some overlap with the monument, which is part of the BLM.
Shared space, shared concerns
BLM and NPS, both agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior, share an office on Mullis Street in Friday Harbor. National Monument manager Brie Chartier said that land managers from both agencies get together every month.
BLM and NPS lands on San Juan Island border each other, and species of concern — such as the island marble butterfly — inhabit grasslands in both jurisdictions. The species of concern designation indicates the need for conservation attention without endangered species status.
The two agencies also share issues of concern. When the national park began discouraging wildlife watchers and photographers from getting too close to the foxes that inhabit the sweeping prairie that extends from American Camp to Cattle Point, visitors moved over to the BLM side.
San Juan Islands National Monument was established in 2013 by President Barack Obama to create more seamless management of BLM’s noncontiguous lands throughout the archipelago. It is bordered roughly by Patos Island to the north, Kellett Bluff on San Juan Island to the west, Iceberg Point on Lopez Island to the south and Chuckanut Rock and the northern tip of Eliza Island in Whatcom County.
The management plan went through a public review and comment period — BLM received more than 1,200 comments in a three-month period on camping, hunting, resource protection and other areas of concern, according to the agency — and the record shows that those comments influenced the final plan. Per Chartier, “The plan pretty well reflects community desires.”
A new council for the next steps
Thirteen governments and agencies — tribal, federal, state and local — participated in developing the plan:
- tribally including Samish Nation, Port Gamble S‘Klallam Tribe, Skokomish Tribe, Stillaguamish Tribe and the Tulalip Tribes
- federally, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, the USCG, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and San Juan Island National Historical Park
- regionally and locally, the State of Washington, San Juan County, Town of Friday Harbor and City of Anacortes.
Now, the sun has set on the National Monument Advisory Council chartered to develop the management plan. A new advisory council, chartered to guide its implementation, will be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. Members of the advisory council will be appointed to three-year terms and serve without compensation, though travel costs will be reimbursed.
BLM regional spokesman Travis Edwards said Sept. 9 that he didn’t have a timeline for appointment of the council members, but added, “I am optimistic that it should be accomplished relatively soon.” The application period closed in June.
Designating perspectives
The outgoing 12-member council had one position designated solely for a tribal representative, though a second Native person was appointed to a wildlife/environmental position.
Edwards told Salish Current that several tribal representatives did apply, but he couldn’t disclose how many. “All positions on the [Monument Advisory Council] are open to tribal members,” he said on Aug. 7. “The MAC is a valuable tool for the BLM to incorporate community perspectives, especially Indigenous people.”
He added, “While the MAC is a helpful way to gather community input, it does not and will not replace the official tribal [government to government] consultation process, which is used in all our planning efforts.”
Edwards said the new council will be composed of members representing:
- archeological, cultural, and heritage interests
- wildlife and ecological interests
- a nonprofit organization whose mission is conservation and/or management of natural resources, land or water
- natural resource management or natural sciences
- recreation and tourism
- local youth, education and interpretation interests.
- significant cultural or historic connections to, and knowledge about, the landscape, archeological sites, or cultural sites on National Monument lands
- a state, county or local elected official
- conservation and/or management of natural resources, land, or water interests
- local interests, as a resident of Lopez Island
- the public at large.
Salish Current reached out to the tribal historic preservation officers of the Lummi Nation, Samish Nation, Stillaguamish Tribe and Swinomish Tribe for comment. Officers deferred to their chairperson’s office or recommended submitting an interview request in writing. Responses were not received by deadline.
Expanding the storytelling
BLM and the national park have been working to strengthen their relationship with tribal nations that have ties to the islands — for their ecological knowledge, to respect their treaty rights and to tell a more complete history of human occupation of the archipelago. The islands are the point of origin of several Coast Salish peoples, among them the Lummi and Samish nations, and cultural resources provide evidence of their life on the island dating at least 12,000 years.
San Juan Island National Historical Park has expanded its telling of the story of the park beyond that of the Pig War — the territory dispute that led to the U.S.-British military occupation of San Juan Island from 1860 to 1872.
The new American Camp Visitor Center tells the story of the Indigenous presence on the island in permanent exhibits inside and on the grounds. At English Camp — which the Lummi Nation knows as Pe’pi’ow’elh — the park worked with the educational nonprofit Whiteswan Environmental in 2016 to install the Reef Net Captain and Salmon Story Boards, which tell the story of the First People’s connection to reef net fishing. They were carved by Temosen Charles Elliott, Tsartlip; and Jewell Praying Wolf James, Lummi.
And on Aug. 25, Whiteswan Environmental hosted a public educational event — “We Come From That: The Land, Water, Salmon, Reef Net and the Language that Belong to it” — at Pe’pi’ow’elh.
On the BLM side, National Monument staff and a Coast Salish Youth Stewardship Corps are engaged in co-stewardship projects through which Coast Salish teens and children learn from thousands of years of traditional ecological knowledge. National Monument staff meet quarterly with Coast Salish partners to keep tribal nations informed of BLM activities and solicit feedback.
Shirley Williams, a citizen of the Lummi Nation and cofounder of Whiteswan Environmental, was one of two Native Americans on the initial National Monument Advisory Council. She applied for appointment to the new council and wants to help give life to the story of the Coast Salish connection to all federal lands on the island.
That storytelling is mostly exhibit driven and static, she said, while the Pig War story is told in a living way: interpreters dressed in period uniforms reenact Royal Marine life at English Camp at a two-day encampment in July and present an 1860s-style holiday dance in December in the camp barracks.
Williams’ organization has taken Coast Salish youth to San Juan Island for summer camp so they can visit ancestral sites, learn about traditional foods and canoe in ancestral waters. But she said various authorities will not let them land canoes on Pe’pi’ow’elh’s shores so as to not disturb middens — layers of shells their ancestors left over centuries of life there.
Williams said landing canoes at Pe’pi’ow’elh would be an important part of telling the story, of reconnecting with this ancestral place, and of healing. The Royal Marines established their military camp here in 1860 — during the time of the grandparents’ grandparents — and used wood from the ancestors’ 600-foot longhouse as construction material and shells from middens to build pathways.
“We’re told we can’t bring a canoe ashore because it could disturb the land, while everybody else has the freedom to move about,” Williams said. “That just keeps the Eurocentric narrative alive.”
The state Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation considers shell middens to be evidence of a village site and an archeological resource; it is against state law to “knowingly remove, alter, dig into or excavate” an archeological resource.
That’s the national park, which is outside the National Monument’s purview. For the Coast Salish story on lands within the National Monument, visitors must go to the Port of Friday Harbor’s Fairweather Park on the Friday Harbor waterfront.
The late anthropologist Wayne Suttles wrote the text for the brass interpretive panel on display near Musqueam artist Susan Point’s house posts, “Interaction,” which overlook the harbor.
At the port’s Jackson Beach, on Griffin Bay, a carved orca sculpture was installed in 2023. The sculpture represents the plight of the southern resident killer whales, whose population is declining. It was carved by Jewell James.
“We need to be able to teach that we come from this land and water and the language that belongs to it,” Williams said. “We need to reconnect and honor what our hereditary chiefs have reminded us that we must remember. If we don’t do it, who’s going to do it?”
By Richard Arlin Walker
Also read in Salish Current:
- “San Juan Monument advisory group dissolved by BLM,” Dec. 12, 2023
- “San Juan Islands National Monument: where’s the plan?,” Sept. 9, 2022
- “Vulnerable lands — and creatures — of San Juan Islands National Monument await management details,” Dec. 4, 2020