Looking for signs of spring - and a park's location

If you've lived in Mason County most of your life, and most of your life constitutes 60 or 70 years, then get ready to hear the following statement and have it clash with what you know to be true.

"Live music, dancing, outdoor dining with fresh local seafood buffet at the Shelton Waterfront Bistro next to Shelton's beautiful Waterfront Park."

Really? Beautiful park ... waterfront ... outdoor music and dining ... Shelton?

OK, it will be a while. But in less than 10 years, I predict the term "walkable waterfront" will whoosh from the lips of many of you, words you will apply most wonderfully to Shelton.

In the future, announcements for waterfront gatherings will appear regularly in the newspaper. Colorful flyers will crowd shop windows up and down West Railroad Avenue, promoting gala events at the new waterfront park and nearby marina.

Mason Transit will coordinate with larger events, bringing visitors directly to and from the waterfront by means of their conveniently located park and ride. Many other visitors will come by boat, from Olympia, Grapeview and Gig Harbor.

What's out, what's not

We'll get back to the unfolding future of Shelton's waterfront, but first let's look around at what's going on, nature-wise, in different parts of Mason County.

Great news! The swans are back and resting up at the confluence between Purdy Creek and the South Fork Skokomish River. Last year we saw two. This year we counted five white swans. The two nearest ones had black beaks and eye markings, making them trumpeter swans, I believe.

To discreetly view them, turn onto Purdy Cutoff Road from U.S. Highway 101, and look for the first few open vistas to your left. You should get a glimpse of moving water and also a sense of where you can park along the shoulder. The swans are out there, trolling on the currents or eating with their big, white rear ends pointing skyward.

I sighted them Saturday. They might be gone by now.

What's not out now: nettles.

What is available - and in great quantity - is salvage wood from all the downed trees due to snow and ice going back to Christmas. Cottonwoods, in particular, do not handle heavy loads of snow on their limbs.

While I collect cottonwood debris for my outdoor fires, I do not recommend it for indoor stoves or fireplaces. It gives off a sharp odor when burning.

What's not out now: cottonwood buds. When fused with olive oil and beeswax, sticky buds make handsome-smelling, healing balms.

Also not out now: Oakland Bay County Park, which is gated and posted "Closed for the season."

Oakland Bay County Park is one of Mason County's finest. But you cannot even tell where it is. No signs indicate the entrance on East Agate Road across from East Julian Road (just before the storage complex on the right, traveling about a mile and a half up the hill from state Route 3).

Imagine all the families with children who live in Timberlakes and have no idea of the cool, wild berry-laden park with fun trails, tideland access, picnic grounds, as well as a historic 1890 pioneer home barely a half-mile from where many of their kids go to school?

A visible street sign would help.

An even better sign

In the realms of good omens for 2022 and beyond, I find the sight of healthy adults swinging shovels, hoes and rakes as a most positive indicator of changes coming about.

A large group of adults caught my attention as I was rounding into Shelton on Route 3, passing the final curve after going under Manke's gravel chute. Along the white stone berm between the Shelton Yacht Club and the highway, men and women were turning earth, weeding and transplanting dozens of purple irises in the fresh, dark soil.

Two small tractors with front-loaders were going back and forth, dropping loads of fresh stone on the Yacht Club parking lot, backing up and smoothing it down with the edges of their front shovels.

Clearly this was a Saturday work party if there ever was one. I pulled over, parked, and jumped out of my car, camera and notepad in hand.

Members of the Shelton Yacht Club were doing a beauty makeover of just about everything in sight. I counted more than a dozen people and just about all of them had a shovel or rake in their hand - or, if not, they were busy driving a tractor or front-loader.

Thinking big

Once I started asking questions, I began hearing names of people and organizations I recognized. A woman with an iris bulb in one hand and a trowel in the other introduced herself as Linda Shrum.

"Linda Shrum?" I said. "That sounds familiar."

That name had been in my ear two weeks earlier, at the end of phone message Shrum had left for my wife, Linda, regarding a presentation Shrum was making on behalf of the Yacht Club to the Mason County League of Women Voters.

I soon get a few more

pieces of the puzzle from Shelton Yacht Club Commodore Jim Ross, Rear Commodore Terry Mehl and Vice Commodore Al Schnittker.

But the most "accommodoring" of all yacht club members turns out to be George Daly, who invites me inside the clubhouse to view an artist's rendering of a futuristic Shelton shoreline, now possible since the yacht club bought out its former landlord, the Port of Shelton, in 2019.

"A top priority is bringing back a biodiverse estuary for Shelton Creek," Daly says, pointing to a shady green beach that fans out where only recently there was pylons, creosote and decay.

In essence, the Shelton Yacht Club is now (in a most un-yacht-like fashion) the primary steward responsible for a heck of a lot of downtown Shelton waterfront.

What I sense about them is they're willing to risk failure in laying out a magnificent ecological vision.

Not that they're doing it on their own - for the fact is, they'll need critical partnerships with groups like Belfair's Salmon Enhancement Center, the Squaxin Island Tribe, and the Mason Conservation District if the Shelton waterfront is to ever look anything like it does in that rendering.

You've seen what a beautiful estuary looks like: aerial video of creeks or rivers fanning out, clear channels snaking among healthy vegetation.

The Shelton Creek future looks very much like John's Creek does right now, just around the watery bend at Bayshore Preserve.

I encourage you to go on Google Maps and look at the transformation of Oakland Bay.

Who knows, look closely and you might someday see a visible street sign for a certain Mason County park at the end of the bay.

■ Mark Woytowich is a writer, photographer, video producer and author of "Where Waterfalls and Wild Things Are." He lives in Potlatch with his wife, Linda. His "On the Go" column appears every other week in the Shelton-Mason County

Journal. Reach him at his website, http://www.wherewaterfallsare.com, or by email at

[email protected].