Photo: Aerial view of the Capital Campus in 1940, before the 5th Avenue dam was built, Washington State Digital Archives
by Jack Stroud
Percival Landing, Friday, Oct. 9, 7:30 a.m.–Red Road Rising, an Indigenous-led spiritual group open to all, stand in a socially distanced circle of eight people, drums in hand, and throw their prayers and songs out over Budd Inlet, “to honor and remember the importance of water.” And in the case of Budd Inlet, “water that is sick, and unhealthy,” says Greg Urquhart, founder of Red Road Rising. Just beyond the gridded parapet, hundreds of boats from the Olympia Yacht Club are floating above the muddy bottom; masts piercing the sky. The water is glass and a great blue heron lazily soars towards the end of one of the many concrete docks. There is the cold smell of the ocean.
Only 70 years prior, the view from the same spot would’ve been unrecognizable. For thousands of years, the headwaters of the Puget Sound was an estuary with low tide mudflats that covered hundreds of acres. The peninsula that Native peoples call(ed) “Cheet-woot”, for its resemblance to a bear, served as a winter camp and a hub for trade and shellfish gathering. Water from the Deschutes that gorged down from the waterfalls that Native peoples call “Tum-wa-ta” for “strong water” flowed freely into and out of a brackish ecosystem that supported thriving shellfish and salmon communities.
Since European contact, the Olympia waterfront has gone through significant alterations. One of the first significant ones came in the early 1850s when colonizers built a 300 foot dock. It was only usable at high-tide, boats at low-tide being left stuck in the mud nearly a mile from the water. In 1885, white settlers completed construction on a 4,786 foot wharf that provided access to the waters of the Puget Sound at all tides. It was rendered unnecessary 10 years later, however, when the Army Corp of Engineers dredged out large parts of Budd Inlet.
In 1909, Olympia taxpayer dollars covered most of a $250,000 project that filled 29 city blocks worth of mud flats north of downtown. Around that same time, Wilder and White, who are often cited for conceiving the original idea for Capitol Lake, were selected to be the architects for the new Capitol Campus. One of their chief concerns for this process was “preserving [the] expression” of Washington that they felt Olympia offered. “It’s location at the head of the Puget Sound, with water and mountains in every direction, makes it distinctive beyond most capital cities,” Wilder said in a 1913 article.
In 1951, the “long fondled hope” of many prominent businessmen and politicians in Olympia came true when construction of the 5th Avenue dam effectively impounded the Deschutes waterway and established Capitol Lake. It is worth noting that the Capitol Lake we now know is not reflective of the original plans drafted by the Olmsted brothers, who worked alongside Wilder and White. In a letter written on Jan. 19, 1912, Olmsted spoke of a “saltwater pond…fluctuating a foot or two at every tide to ensure change of water.”
Since then, perhaps the most significant incidence of terraforming on the Olympia waterfront was completed in 1979 when East Bay Marina, now known as Swantown Marina, filled in 54 acres of mudflats on the peninsula. The peninsula had completely lost the bear likeness from which it got its name.
40 years and over 700 boat slips later, Swantown still has plans for development. Dylan Dixon, the Marina Office Manager at Swantown, in an interview with the CPJ, spoke about plans for “doing a lot of upland development and getting more retail spaces,” as well as an RV park, and three more docks. The docks, however, would “require a lot of dredging and the environmental side of things,” Dixon said, “so that is slated to be a later phase of the development.
Now owned by the Port of Olympia, Swantown is vocal about their concern for the ecology of Budd Inlet. And they have the PDFs to show for it. But concerned citizen Greg Urquhart fears it is all talk. One PDF, titled “West Bay Environmental Restoration Assessment”, explains that the restoration plan laid out in that document will be “to the extent possible under existing developed conditions.” or as Greg translated, “if it’s an inconvenience then we’re not gonna go there.”
“We are really trying to make Swantown a destination, a boater destination and more so a destination for the community,” Dixon said. He was concerned that “people don’t necessarily want to come down [to Swantown] if they don’t have a boat because they don’t feel like they belong and that’s not what we’re trying to do.”
Dixon feels that Swantown is a neat community where the tenants all look out for each other. He is excited to see how it develops over the next 10 years.
Now, it is unequivocally true that the Olympia waterfront as we know it would not be possible without the 5th Avenue dam. It is also true that some of the strongest opposition to estuary restoration comes from champions of Olympia’s boating/yachting community who dread a contingency where Olympia’s marinas are rendered impotent with every next low tide. While Dixon said he would not be outright opposed to estuary restoration, seeing as he is “for nature,” he would still need to see “a lot of plans and how they’re planning to go about it before [he] could say one way or the other honestly.”
Urquhart, on the other hand, is of the mind that Olympia’s boating community has too narrow of a lens. “I just wish more people would be aware of the First Nations that inhabit this land and the course of events that led to where we’re at now so they can have a broader view of what this place could be again if we worked together.”
As the singers clustered apart, clouds came together to form holes and the Olympics became partially visible in the distance. “If you can screen out the boats, you’re still looking out of a lot of the traditional area out there,” Urquhart said.
