Blakely Harbor Park Archives | Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park

A volunteer force 230 strong made it “A Day On, Not A Day Off” at the annual MLK Jr. Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park, Jan. 20.

It was the largest-ever turnout for the annual stewardship day at the park.

How about these impressive numbers across the board:

Blackberry, ivy and other invasive weeds (25 yards) tugged and hauled off to TILZ for composting. New native shrubs and trees (400 total) put into the winter soil, blanketed by yards and yards (50) of fresh mulch. Trash (10 gallons) picked up from nearby roadsides. Even pinecone bird feeders (dozens) crafted by small hands, to support our avian neighbors.

Here’s another great number: $200,000 – that’s the funding granted by the Parks & Trails Foundation to support Blakely Harbor Park restoration since 2014.

That number is multiplied many times over by the outstanding work […]

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor ParkDouglas2025-02-16T14:16:21-08:00

Weed-munching goats return to Blakely Harbor

Weed-munching goats return to Blakely Harbor

Weed-munching goats are back at Blakely Harbor Park, for a week of environmental stewardship on the hoof funded by the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation.

The herd some is deployed along the park’s south trail, there to suppress ivy, blackberry and other noxious weeds as only goats can: by eating them.

The herd from Vason-based Rent-a-Ruminant is comprised of “rescue” goats always eager to do their part for park restoration. The herd has worked Blakely Harbor Park several times in recent years, most recently munching invasive understory near the park meadow last summer.

The goats are one part of a progressive ecological restoration at the signature shoreline park. Student Conservation Corps, EarthCorps and year-round volunteer programs including the Parks & Trails Foundation’s ParksCorps follow the goats with weeding, mulching and other activities.

The goats are funded by a grant from the Parks & Trails Foundation. The grant will also fund reintroduction of native […]

Weed-munching goats return to Blakely HarborDouglas2024-06-11T08:58:44-07:00

Thanks for an inspiring MLK event Blakely Harbor

Thanks for an inspiring MLK event Blakely Harbor

Tremendous thanks to all who made MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park a grand success!

Much mulch was spread, many nasty weeds tugged out of the frozen ground as together we made it a wholesome and spirited Day On, not a Day Off for volunteer service and park stewardship.

Who turned out? Tim Burke and son Beckham:

“We live up the street and use this park all the time, so we wanted to give a little bit of our time to help out the park that we frequent,” Tim Burke said. “Our family runs here, we play on the beach, we swim in the water. It’s a special place.”

And Liz Springer:

“It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions, to volunteer in parks more, because I use the trails,” she said. “And I really hate invasives. I have them in my […]

Thanks for an inspiring MLK event Blakely HarborDouglas2024-01-25T16:59:58-08:00

Stop weeds – brush those boots before you hike

Stop weeds – brush those boots before you hike

Brush your boots before you hike? It’s good policy, and good trail hygiene, catching the spread of invasive weeds and seeds before they’re tromped all over trails and parks.

To that end, you’ll find new boot-brush stations at two island trailheads: Gazzam Lake Preserve (Deerpath Lane) and Blakely Harbor Park (3-T Road). Two more are on the way, at Grand Forest West (Miller Road) and another at Gazzam Lake (Marshall Road trailhead, this one an Eagle Scout project and also funded by a Parks & Trails Foundation grant).

“They’re exactly like what people might on their front porch to scrape mud off their boots before they head inside,” says Morgan Houk, volunteer program manager for Bainbridge Metro Parks. “They can be used coming in and out of trail systems to catch invasive weeds – especially in the wintertime, when we tend to […]

Stop weeds – brush those boots before you hikeDouglas2023-08-25T09:19:44-07:00

The heart and soul of Bainbridge Island parks

The heart and soul of Bainbridge Island parks

Perry Barrett and Bainbridge Island found each other at just the right moment.

It was 1994, and islanders were not too long removed from saving the first 240 acres of the Grand Forest from development, and were turning their eyes toward Gazzam Lake. Preservation was in the air. Barrett, meanwhile, joined the Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation District (the “Metro” would come later) as a planner with a background in open space and trails.

It was a timely match.

“The community had this shared vision that ‘if you don’t buy it now, it’ll go away as an opportunity,’” Barrett recalls. “That was very much true, and even more true today than even the most far-sighted people could see.”

Over the next 29 years, Barrett would play a quiet but essential role in expanding a modest park system into the treasure that islanders know and enjoy today.

Working from a hopelessly cluttered nook in the Park […]

The heart and soul of Bainbridge Island parksDouglas2023-04-20T13:35:56-07:00

Goats munch their way through the weeds at Blakely Harbor

Goats munch their way through the weeds at Blakely Harbor

What’s the cutest way to get rid of some really baaaaaaaaaad weeds? Goats!

Goats visited Blakely Harbor Park this past week, charming islanders while clearing invasive blackberry, ivy and more. Thanks to a grant from the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation, Tammy Dunakin and her nearly 100 goats helped in the continued restoration of Blakely Harbor Park, once the site of the largest mill in the world.

Blakely Harbor Park is no stranger to goats. In 2018, a large herd visited to clear blackberry and other invasive weeds from areas of the park that are now replanted with thriving native vegetation. However, the work isn’t done yet. Thanks to Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation funding, the goats were able to return, working through a dense patch of over an acre of blackberry and ivy off Country Club Road.

Once above-ground vegetation is cleared, the Park District’s Student Conservation Corps, volunteers, and contractors, […]

Goats munch their way through the weeds at Blakely HarborDouglas2023-04-20T13:54:41-07:00

MLK Day makes welcome return to Blakely

MLK Day makes welcome return to Blakely

About 175 volunteers made it “a day on, not a day off,” as MLK Day of Service returned to Blakely Harbor Park after a three-year Covid layoff.

Effort was concentrated around the park’s south boundary near Country Club Road. Volunteers uprooted swaths of ivy that had taken hold since the last big restoration event and replanted Northwest natives.

“It needs a lot of love,” Lydia Roush, Natural Resources Manager for Bainbridge Metro Parks, said of the park’s southwest quadrant. “It’s the same methodology that continues to ring true. You pull ‘em out, you come back and monitor and continue to pull, and eventually they’re eradicated.

“We fill in with as much native vegetation as we can to help shade out and keep invasives from taking hold. Volunteers are really critical in helping us achieve our goals.”

Northwest natives introduced included yarrow (Achillea […]

MLK Day makes welcome return to BlakelyDouglas2023-02-01T09:25:00-08:00

Volunteers boost restoration at Blakely Harbor Park

Volunteers boost restoration at Blakely Harbor Park

Not unlike the rest of us, Blakely Harbor Park came out of lockdown ready to reconnect with friends.

Bainbridge park usage soared during COVID’s first year – how long ago that now seems, but who didn’t want to get outside? But the pandemic also curbed stewardship programs that overlay the Park District’s regular maintenance work to help keep parks healthy and smart.

As the clouds of pandemic cleared a bit this past year, volunteers safely returned to the field and island parks came out the better – perhaps none more than Blakely Harbor.

There, a concentrated, months-long effort by Bainbridge Metro Parks, supported by the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation and the City of Bainbridge Island, paid off with a newly restored meadow and shoreline.

It began in spring with blackberry and ivy pulls, tough work that continued through the summer months. By fall, with noxious vines […]

Volunteers boost restoration at Blakely Harbor ParkDouglas2021-12-22T11:09:07-08:00

Looking for green crabs in Blakely Harbor

Looking for green crabs in Blakely Harbor

Watchful residents and visitors might have noticed monthly activity at the head of Blakely Harbor, just inside the old log pond. From April through September, volunteers with Washington Sea Grant Crab Team look for evidence of invasive European green crabs. And no, none have been found in this area to date, thankfully!

Six traps are set at a low tide and retrieved the next day. The contents are then photographed, crabs are identified by species, measured, the sex noted, and then native animals are released back into the water. Native crabs found in the Blakely Harbor traps have included two species of shore crabs, Dungeness crabs, graceful crabs, kelp crabs and large numbers of red rock crabs.

The team has found more than just crabs in the traps. Other visitors, lured by the smelly but inaccessible mackerel bait, have included bay pipe fish, staghorn and tidepool sculpins, gunnels, shiner perch, flounder, […]

Looking for green crabs in Blakely HarborDouglas2021-04-22T09:29:56-07:00

Blakely Harbor Park: building an environmental success

Blakely Harbor Park: building an environmental success

Blakely Harbor Park is rich in stories and lore.

Once the site of a traditional Suquamish winter village on its south shore, European settlement brought construction of Port Blakely town and its massive sawmill, when the bay was filled with tall ships and the roar of saws echoed across the water.

More recently slated for an intense development – in the early 1990s, the Port Blakely Mill Co. wanted to build 900 homes, a ferry terminal and a restaurant here – the historic log pond and surrounding land was saved through public purchase in 1999, and christened Blakely Harbor Park under the stewardship of the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District.

Frank Stowell, who lives up the road in one of the former mill houses, has enjoyed the harbor for years – since before it was a park – fishing the quiet waters alongside eagles and ospreys. He’s watched as the now […]

Blakely Harbor Park: building an environmental successDouglas2025-01-09T15:28:04-08:00