Illahee Forest Work Party 8/4/10
East Bremerton Rotary, in conjunction with personnel from Marine Corp Security Force Bangor and the USS John C. Stennis, completed a very productive work party at Illahee Forest Preserve on Wednesday evening, August 4th. A great deal of trail maintenance was completed including applying wood chips to the trail system. Much was also accomplished to improve the rain garden landscape feature located in the middle of the parking lot. A total of 48 people participated in this activity. Thanks to Costco and Starbucks who provided support for the evening's refreshments.
Parks Department Support. The Parks Department also helped by supplying 4 additional wheel borrows, which were needed, and tools.
Some Work Pictures. There were many work areas being manned at the same time, some projects did not get photographed. We have provided a sampling of the photos so you can see some of the work that was in progress.
Definition of Word "Illahee." We did have some of the volunteers who were new to this area get confused between the Illahee Preserve and Illahee State Park, which reminded us of something we saw on the State Park's Dept website, which is a definition of th word "Illahee." The first part of the definition certainly was applicable to all who worked the land, earth, and ground on Wednesday.
Illahee State Park was acquired in seven parcels between 1934 and 1954. The word "illahee" is from Chinook Jargon and has many meanings: "land, earth, ground", "place; and/or location where one lives", "home place", "heavenly place" or "place of rest".
Jim Aho
