Kah Tai Prairie Preserve

Kah Tai Prairie Preserve. . , Here in the wind-buffeted rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains grow colorful relics of the last ice age. The tiny prairie before you is a remnant of once extensive grasslands that followed the retreat of continental ice over 10,000 years ago. Historically, these gravelly 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. This patch is one of the few to survive., Pioneer son James McCurdy reminisced about what the Kai Tai valley was like when settlers arrive[d]. "Myriads of wild flowers transformed the valley floor into a many hued carpet..." Most of this colorful prairie, which once stretched from Kah Tai lagoon to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is changed forever. But this 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 this 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 pomocelery 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. Please help us preserve this irreplaceable jewel by leaving the blooms for others to enjoy, not littering, and using care when exploring.