In the wind-buffeted rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains grow
colorful relics of the last ice age. The tiny prairie preserved
in the Kah Tai Prairie Preserve is a remnant of once extensive
grasslands that followed the retreat of continental ice over
10,000 years ago. Historically, these gravely prairies were
important habitat for deer and elk. Indigenous people burned some
of these grasslands to keep shrubs at bay and maintain essential
food plants like blue camas. Throughout western Washington, these
remnants quickly succumbed to the plow or development. Kah Tai is
one of the few to survive.
Pioneer son James McCurdy reminisced about what the Kah Tai
valley was like when settlers arrive. "Myriads of wild
flowers transformed the valley floor into a many hued
carpet..." Most of the prairie, which once stretched from
Kah Tai lagoon to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is changed forever.
But a swath was inadvertently preserved as a rough when the
municipal golf course was established around the turn of the
century. In 1987 the city of Port Townsend set the area aside as
the Kah Tai Prairie Preserve. The Olympic chapter of the
Washington Native Plant Society strives to maintain and restore
this rare and beautiful prairie by removing non-native weeds and
protecting native prairie plants.
Visit and experience a prairie season, from the first pink bells of grass-widows among scattered tufts of Idaho fescue and pomo-celery in March...to a blustery April day when the tide-scented wind is tossing camas, mission-bells, old man's whiskers, and buttercups into a streaked canvas of blue, brown, pink, and yellow...to the more subtle golds and purples of the goldenrod and fleabane summers.
The prairie is located within the Port Townsend
Municipal Golf Course (1948 Blaine Street). To learn more about
native plants and their preservation, contact the Washington Native Plant Society,
P.O. Box 28690, Seattle, WA 98118-8690.