 |
| GARY SMITH |
Gary Smith has been on the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council as a community organization representative for 15 years. With the help of many partners, he set about compiling an oral history of Bear Creek and its salmon. This project tapped seven people in the community, from creekside property owners in the Basin like Terry Lavender to representatives of local governments: John Marchione, Ray Heller and Roger Dane (all now retired). He also interviewed non-profit organization representatives like Tom Murdoch of Adopt-A-Stream and past presidents of WaterTenders.
You can learn of Bear Creek from those stewards as they tell their individual stories in audio and video interviews. Gary has also provided a narrative story of the cooperation between citizens, non-profit organizations, and local governments to mitigate the impacts of urbanization and to preserve the best of the natural world remaining in the creek basin. To view the full five-minute video. To learn more about the projects.
Source: WIRIA 8 Newsletter
Reported by Bob Yoder, 2/25/2022
Viewers may not realize that Bear Creek flows into the Sammamish River not far from downtown Redmond. Not only do salmon migrate up Bear Creek to spawn, but it is also home to endangered freshwater mussels, which I have photographed in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe City of Redmond website has a webpage about the Native American archeological significance of the lower Bear Creek, which you can read at this link:
https://www.redmond.gov/1354/Significance-of-the-Bear-Creek-Site
Here is a brief quote from the webpage:
"A unique archaeological site—the Bear Creek Site—was discovered during a 2008 cultural
resources survey. During archaeological investigations conducted with the restoration of
the Bear Creek stream the site yielded artifacts that date to over 12,000 years ago."