The staff and board of directors at Recreation Northwest would like to thank Jon Carter choosing to join us this summer to help with our Fairhaven Park Stewardship project.  Jon came to us for 5 weeks from the Patagonia store in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jon was afforded this opportunity through Patagonia’s Environmental Internship program for their employees. From the outset, we gave Jon a “Bellingham Welcome”.

After getting aquainted with the office and the workload ahead, we got on our mountain bikes and postered Galbraith Mountain with flyers for our project fundraiser, Behind the Bus. 

We also roped him in for a Bellingham Traverse photo shoot. His flower shirt is sure to attract attention! 

Jon learned that we like to have fun. We get people out for Traverse Course previews, so he joined in. 

Paddle photo

Back to the work! While we don’t have photos of Jon working in the office, we do have the fruits of his labor to share. Check out the fun video that he made to help raise the remaining funds for our Fairhaven Park project. 

It’s wasn’t all just time at the keys. Jon got outside and put his hands to work. Here he is removing the invasive species of thistle that is taking over our recently cleared blackberry bramble area in our wetland buffer. 

Jon also helped to prepare for our upcoming work parties. He’s tagging the native plants that we put in the ground earlier in the spring. We’ll be coming in with our volunteer crews to weed around our precious plants and help ensure their livelihood. 

We have more to do. 

Thanks Jon. 

Here’s an interesting article on Patagonia’s blog The Cleanest Line: 36 Hours in Bluff: On the road towards a Bears Ears national monument.