Kitsap Memorial State Park – state parks quest #22

I thought I’d be starting this post with, “It was bound to happen. After visiting more than 20 state parks, we had a mediocre experience.” A series of mishaps had tinged our first few hours at Kitsap Memorial State Park with frustration. We’d planned to be at the park the previous night for the spring equinox but couldn’t. We were on edge because of the growing pandemic, unsure whether we should even be visiting state parks and expecting a stay-home order at any moment. Despite beautiful weather, I was tired and tense.

But then Mr. Adventure turned up a trail I hadn’t noticed and suddenly we saw where all the great blue herons flying overhead had been going. It was a large heronry in the forest above Kitsap Memorial’s campground loop. We counted 29 nests and stood, listening to the herons’ throaty krawwwnks and watching them flap, ungainly, among the trees. Instantly, the day seemed brighter and calmer, and I felt myself relax.

Feathered dinosaurs

Herons recall their dinosaur ancestors perhaps more than any other bird. In flight, they look like pterodactyls, huge wings ponderously beating to keep them aloft, legs dangling underneath, stiletto bills slicing the air. Great blue herons can reach more than four feet tall, weigh nearly six pounds, and have a wingspan of six-plus feet, all of which adds to their prehistoric mien. I see them nearly every day where I live, stalking prey in the shallows of Puget Sound or winging overhead at sunset back to their nest.

The heronry (that is the correct term, according to a bird biologist friend) at Kitsap Memorial was one of the largest I’d ever seen. Herons flew in and out of the forest as if following air-traffic control commands. Wanting to learn more, I later read that males bring nest materials to the females, who do the design-build work. Nests can be small and simple starter homes, about 20 inches across, or rambling mansions with years of additions, vegetal masses four feet wide and three feet deep. Heronries can reach a population of several hundred breeding pairs (and wouldn’t that be something to see!). Although great blue herons aren’t considered threatened, pollutants in the waters they fish can affect their habitat and reproductive success.

Beach with a mountain view

Invigorated by our close-up view of the heron colony, we followed the short trail past an amphitheater in the woods and back to the campground, then walked down to the beach. Kitsap Memorial’s beach is rocky, littered with shells and seaweed, and on this equinoctial mid-morning, in shade to the waterline. It wasn’t much past high tide. Everything was wet to the rock seawall at the base of the bluff.

On this sunny first day of spring, the Olympic Mountains filled the horizon and two kayakers paddled across the blue water cross-hatched by wind and tide.

We stopped to speak to a fisherman casting from the shore, white bucket at his feet. “Sea perch or sea cutthroat,” he said in response to my question about what he might pull in. “I hope so, anyway.” He was a member of a local tribe petitioning for subsistence fishing permission: “That way we can feed ourselves during the pandemic.” We wished him luck and walked on down the short beach.

Works Progress Administration at Kitsap Memorial

Back atop the bluff, we turned into the trees toward a massive log building. This is Log Hall, built in 1936-37 under the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program to employ jobless people on public works projects. Launched in 1935, WPA projects ranged from roads and bridges to airports and parks, and went far beyond infrastructure to a bogglingly diverse array of initiatives. One notable example is WPA’s Federal Project Number One, which employed writers, artists, dramatists, and musicians to create educational and recreational materials. The Federal Writers Project state guides are one well-known product, but writers also recorded slave narratives, folklore, and community histories.

By the time wartime jobs made the WPA obsolete in 1943, workers had built more than a half-million miles of roads and 8,000 new parks, among tens of thousands of other projects. In Washington, about a dozen state parks benefited from WPA work, including Sacajawea, where the Interpretive Center, nearby buildings, and gardens were constructed by WPA crews.

Kitsap Memorial, however, does not appear to have been originally established as a WPA project. The Vinland Community Club led a fundraising effort to purchase the land for a park in 1936. Wishing to honor county commissioner and park proponent Henry Brown, club members proposed calling it North Kitsap Memorial Park.

Within a year, the club could no longer afford to manage the park and turned it over to Kitsap County. But the WPA was up and running, providing an opportunity for local government to get people working again and add park infrastructure. City or county government had to come up with a portion of the costs, and apply to WPA’s state office for approval before the project would be forwarded to the main office in Washington, D.C., for a final green light.

Log Hall

That’s how Log Hall and three satellite structures, the Hospitality House, Log Pavilion, and outdoor kitchen, got built, and it seems likely that Commissioner Brown was behind the proposal.

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Originally a community hall, Log Hall holds it own among the tall trees surrounding it. Impressively large at 3,200 square fee, it can hold 175 people and is a popular wedding site. Although the building was locked the day we visited, we peered in the mullioned windows and saw large cross beams under a high ceiling and a polished wood floor perfect for dancing. The view out to Hood Canal and the mountains beyond is unquestionably stunning.

Just beyond Log Hall, the open-air Log Pavilion is also a popular wedding site. If my Google searches are any indication, holding the ceremony in the pavilion and the reception in the hall is the usual plan.

All it needs are elves

Nearby is the sweet Hospitality House, a small cabin completed in 1937 as a restroom for Log Hall. It’s now available as a vacation rental and as a wedding prep area. Moss carpets the shake roof and a small barbecue stands outside the front door. A sign outside pays tribute to Ranger Ed Johanson, who worked at the park from 1993 to 2012.

In the small woods above Kitsap Memorial’s beach, Log Hall, Log Pavilion, and Hospitality House strike me as something out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. Made from local materials and sited to harmonize with their surroundings, they look inviting and Scandinavian. Given that the impetus for the park came from the Vinland Community Club — Vinland is the name given by Vikings to the area of Newfoundland they explored about a thousand years ago, and this area of the Kitsap Peninsula was settled by Scandinavians in the 1800s — it’s only fitting. It’s what I imagine parts of Norway or Sweden or Middle-Earth to be like, and I am smitten.

Cabins and camping

Kitsap Memorial also offers four cabins for overnight stays. Sitting in a row across the large meadow above the beach, they also have excellent mountain views. On the far side of the entrance road is a campground, which when we visited was being remodeled to create more spacious sites. A large group site is accessible from the park access road.

As the day stretched into evening, we walked back around the meadow and looked back at the cabins. On the equinox, day and night are equal, and the sun was setting behind the Olympics. Long rays stretched across the grass, past the playground where we’d seen families enjoying the nice weather earlier.

Nothing in Kitsap Memorial is very far from anything else. It’s a small park, intended to provide recreation and relaxation close to home and equally suited for weddings and beachcombing. Its location near the entrance to Hood Canal, the 70-mile-long western arm of Puget Sound, makes it a good jumping-off place for exploring the Kitsap Peninsula or, with the Hood Canal Floating Bridge just three miles north, the Olympic Peninsula. For us, though, it was a fine place to observe the first day of spring.

Fast facts about Kitsap Memorial State Park

• 62-acre camping park, open year-round
• $10 daily parking pass (buy the annual Discover Pass, a bargain at $30)
• 1,797 feet of saltwater shoreline
• Campsites, some with hookups, and cabins reservable online or by calling 888-CAMPOUT
• restrooms and showers
• picnic tables, playground, grills, outdoor kitchens
• hiking, amphitheater,
• Log Hall, Log Pavilion, and Hospitality House available to rent
• beachcombing, diving, swimming, fishing and shellfishing (license required)
• moorage buoys
• park brochure
• park map
  

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