Stewards of Chuckanut Island
The small island in Chuckanut Bay is challenged with invasive plants and birds, but humans present the biggest threat.
Story and photos by Waverly Shreffler
June 15, 2021
Evening light filters through mature trees on Chuckanut Island in Chuckanut Bay, Washington. The island, which has never been logged, evolves in its natural state.
Voices filter through the forest understory as Aimee Frazier, Chuckanut Island steward, climbs with ease up the steep and rooted slope to the island’s perimeter trail. She weaves through overflowing branches in their mid-spring growth spurt.
“The island belongs to itself,” Frazier chuckles.
In Chuckanut Bay, just one mile south of Bellingham city limits, the Chuckanut Island Cyrus Gates Memorial Preserve is held in its natural state by the Nature Conservancy, “for the benefit of all.” Frazier and her husband, Peter Frazier, monitor and protect the island via sea kayak from their home across the bay. As volunteer stewards since 1996, they have witnessed the island’s change over time and worry about increasing human impact.
Chuckanut Island, roughly the size of three soccer fields, provides critical habitat for an abundance of plant and animal species native to the Salish Sea. A nesting bald eagle pair chirps above forest canopy as seabirds hunt intertidal critters from rocky cliffsides. Old-growth Douglas fir, western red cedar and Pacific madrone shade a mosaic of salal, snowberry and ocean spray. Fingers of Chuckanut sandstone create pockets of shore where seal pups await their mothers and river otters play. With the biodiversity and beauty of the small island comes vulnerability.
Aimee Frazier, island steward for the Nature Conservancy, travels to the island by sea kayak. She leaves nothing but footprints and only takes one souvenir: A pocket full of invasive ivy, which protrudes from her coat pocket.
Stopping along the trail to pull ivy from the roots, Frazier explained there are three problem species on the island: English ivy, Canada geese and humans.
The Fraziers have their methods of keeping ivy and geese at bay. They host an annual English ivy pull and disrupt geese nesting during spring months in an effort to discourage their return.
People, on the other hand, have proved more difficult to manage. Bellingham is growing rapidly, with a population surge of 18.7% since 2010. The Fraziers have noticed this change in increasing traffic to the island over the last three years. Litter, cut branches, human and dog feces and trampled plants are signs of human disturbance on the island. Building campfires, however, poses the biggest threat.
“We’re not combative people, but our job is to speak for the ecosystem here and the primacy of the island to get to exist in its current and evolving state,” Frazier said. “If you burn it down, that does interrupt that process.”
The Nature Conservancy asks visitors to keep their ecological footprint minimal by not building campfires, leaving canine companions home, beaching only on the northeast and west beaches and staying on the foot trail. They also ask that people visit only during daylight hours.
The scorched trunk of a western red cedar reminds Frazier of the times she and her husband have carried water into the forest to drown smoldering tree roots.
“I think people do want to do the right thing, and I don’t think they respond best to a prohibitive ethic,” Frazier said. “But I think if they understood that this is a conservancy, a sanctuary, they would get that.”
The island has been managed by The Nature Conservancy since 1976, but the original stewards, the Coast Salish peoples, have a relationship with this place that spans thousands of years.
Layers of shells once piled into middens by Coast Salish tribes are exposed in eroding bluffs. Middens provide ecological benefit to trees.
Countless generations of Coast Salish tribes have navigated the Chuckanut coastline, harvesting and processing an abundance of shellfish, evident in layers of shell pilings called “middens” found in eroding bluffs. Traditional shellfish harvesting cannot be practiced in Chuckanut Bay due to levels of biotoxins and pollution harmful to human health, according to the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife. As stewards of these lands and waters, the Northern Straits tribes have an enduring relationship with the Salish Sea.
The sunny southern face of the island is dappled with twisting madrona trees, a rare forest composition unique to coastline habitats.
Walking along the southern edge of the perimeter trail, Frazier is startled by a nesting mother goose.
“Hissssss!” The mad momma glares and points her neck at Frazier.
A mother goose watches fiercely as Frazier walks by her full nest of eggs, only a foot off the trail. Canada geese are invasive to the island and take over native bird habitat. The Fraziers remove the eggs from their nests to discourage the ever-growing geese populations and prevent hikers from forging new trails to avoid them.
Canada geese are native to the Pacific Northwest, but they are taking over, Frazier said. They are not only aggressive toward other bird species, but humans, too, and are nesting on the island in large numbers.
Geese are philopatric, meaning they return to the nesting sites where they hatched. On a short walk around the small island, Frazier counted 10 nesting goose pairs, and knows their young will return to the island as well. To manage this growing goose population, the Nature Conservancy has instructed the island stewards to curtail reproduction by shaking or removing eggs and nests at an early stage of development. This practice helps reduce future nesting but must be done with permission and training, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It’s a really hard, unpleasant task, Frazier said. As a mother, she feels conflicted when she has to disrupt a nest, but as the island’s steward, knows that it’s needed to protect and preserve the ecosystem. The geese take up prime habitat for other protected bird species, like the pigeon guillemot, and force people to forge new trails to give them a wide berth, Frazier said.
A Canada goose bullies three harlequin ducks off the rocks.
The Chuckanut Island ecosystem is threatened by more than just disruptive species. The State of the Salish Sea report, published in May, addresses how local and global environmental stressors like, impacts from urbanization, sea-level rise, ocean acidification and warming intersect and affect the Salish Sea. The report suggests an accelerating need for collaborative efforts to learn about and restore ecosystems and reduce human influence.
Frazier rises to the challenge head-on. She believes we must “build caring and connection so that there can be protection.”
On sunny days people can be found exploring tidepools, admiring honeycomb weathering patterns in Chuckanut sandstone and basking in the beauty of this island gem.
“I think it’s interesting and important to think about what makes that translation from recreation, which is sort of use-based, and stewardship, which is giving back,” Frazier said.
Readying her kayak to paddle home across the bay, Frazier expresses that humans are not separate from wild spaces. She hopes that Chuckanut Island visitors can pull some ivy, learn from the trees and spend enough time here that a transformation occurs: From visitor to steward.
“We want everyone to be stewards,” Frazier said. “When it comes to land, it’s all of ours to steward.”
A paddleboarder sets off into the sunset facing the northern tip of Chuckanut Bay. Faded Canadian mountains appear purple in the distance.
Wavey Shreffler is a post-baccalaureate student earning her secondary education teaching endorsement in geography and social studies. She is passionate about amplifying underrepresented perspectives and environmental hope through photojournalism.