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Two In Tow & On The Go | Four surprising finds to explore outside the Gig Harbor Civic Center
Today’s kid adventure brings you four surprising finds to explore outside the Gig Harbor Civic Center at 3510 Grandview St. But first, some breaking news.
Well, it’s actually breaking news that’s three days old. So that makes it more like semi-stale-info-you-probably-already-heard-about-but-also-maybe-not-so-here-it-is news. The winners of this year’s Harbor History Museum Round Rock Contest have been announced!
The list of folks who nabbed first through fifth place spots for submitting the roundest rocks among the crowd were posted to the museum’s website on Tuesday, Aug. 20. As you may recall, I entered that contest for the first time this year and wrote about it in the last column. Then my editor made a joke about it on Facebook that said “The kids weren’t a-round, so Two In Tow & On The Go went looking for the perfect rock by herself” because it was my first no-kid Two in Tow Adventure. So … did I win? Was my spherical find the greatest in all the land?! Sadly, no. But these people’s were:
First Place: Collins Asplund
Second Place: Mary Rafferty
Third Place: Shonna Wilkerson
Fourth Place: Molly McCutcheon
Fifth Place: Owen DeBarthe
You can see the beautiful roundness of their rocks, plus the almost-roundness of all the other entries — including my no-place rock — now on display at the museum’s front desk. A destination in its own right, the Harbor History Museum is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday at 4121 Harborview Drive along the downtown waterfront. Admission is free and its youngest guests won’t want to miss the I Spy exhibit we visited last year that remains on display through October.
NOW ONTO OUR MAIN EVENT:
Four surprising finds to explore outside the Gig Harbor Civic Center
Gig Harbor Civic Center, 3510 Grandview St. Photo by Tonya Strickland.
Gig Harbor Civic Center, home to city hall, the municipal court and the city’s police station, has a large outdoor area around it that sports a few destinations under different names: the Civic Center Green, Grandview Forest Park and the Skate Park (which also has a playground). As we discovered last week, there’s a surprising mix of interesting things to see there that you may have missed on previous visits.
The top of this list features something cool, and something scary. So fun, right? Haha. Hear me out:
1. Arbor Art
Grandview Forest Park is arguably the most-sought-after recreation space among these options. However, we opted not to walk into the forest due to some dangers I’ll get to in a minute. But a not-to-miss feature at this city trail park that makes this list is the Gig Harbor Arts Commission’s Arbor Art program, which in 2019 put the call out for local artists to make cool art out of the stumps and snags (aka lopped-off dead trees) within the forest.
This occurred after the city discovered dozens of trees at Grandview Forest Park are at risk of falling down from laminated root rot, something the U.S. Forest Service says is the “most damaging root disease of forest trees in Oregon and Washington” and “one of the most hazardous to people and property in popular developed recreation areas.” The condition is the same penetrating fungus that famously brought down a swath of trees at nearby Kopachuck State Park in years past, effectively ending overnight camping there.
The pathogen notoriously decays a tree from the inside out, colonizing in its roots, eating away at the very thing that connects the tree to the ground. All of which makes for the very scary situation that these towering, infected trees throughout the trail system can literally topple over at any minute — especially on windy days.
Grandview Forest Park’s root rot warning sign.
And yet, for some reason I have not discovered, the city hasn’t removed this forest park in its entirety. Apparently, there was some pushback at city council meetings to try and save the trees circa 2017. But the U.S. Forest Service says laminated root rot can’t even be killed by fire. Later, I read about a few bulk removals the city contracted for at the location in years past — but, for the most part, a whole forest of trees remains there today. In fact, there are warning signs posted at each Grandview Forest Park trail entrance notifying the public that “the danger is ever present.” Yikes.
But, in my opinion, the signs aren’t super obvious to the average visitor that literally anyone out for a forested stroll, at any given time, is at risk of being crushed to death by the rotting, towering conifers. And, to that effect, I’d gently nudge the city to add the same warning to its Grandview Forest Park webpage since there’s currently no mention of the park’s dangerous root rot there. I, for one, would certainly appreciate such a gesture while planning outings with the kids from my laptop at home.
All that said, I do like the sentiment of creating beauty from an otherwise dismal situation. So the Arbor Art program is a hit, in my book. But for us, we’ll only be viewing it without entering the park. While there are some stump carvings inside the forest park itself, there’s another set of almost-hidden taller snag carvings — plus a particularly awesome bonus stump squirrel — on the easternmost edge of Grandview Forest Park facing Stanich Avenue that you can see from the residential street there.
The snag carvings were done in 2020 by an Allyn-based chainsaw artist team lead by George Kenny.
A reader tells me that the carved squirrel was done by artist Jeff Samudosky.
Further into the forest, Samudosky carved other works for the public, such as an owl and bears. The city also features his other wooden sculpture at Crescent Creek Park.
The kids and I found the tall snag carvings — featuring fantasy-inspired faces, a cabin, and a woodpecker — completely by surprise after walking the Cushman Trail alternative route around the outer perimeter of Grandview Forest Park since it was decidedly not worth the risk for us to explore the trails within the forest.
2. Skate Park & Playground
Skate Park Playground, Gig Harbor Civic Center. Photo by Tonya Strickland.
Just west of the Civic Center’s parking lot is a concrete skate park next to an older playground the city calls a tot lot. It has a slide climber, swings, and a pretty sweet rock wall that’s just short enough for little kids — no harnesses required. While the play equipment is sparse, Clara and Wyatt still amused themselves on the tiny slide climber for 30 minutes, making up games to occupy their creative energy and growing imaginations.
They also tried out the climbing wall, which looks too cool with its colorful hand and feet grips that provide a nice visual contrast to the Douglas fir backdrop of dark greens that circle the skate park. While we haven’t tried any skate parks quite yet, it appears this one is popular
Skate Park playground climbing wall, Gig Harbor.
with the teenage crowd who can be found geared up in helmets and knee pads rolling down, around, up and out of the concrete bowl, curves and ramps.
3. Harbor Lure
The city’s art inventory says its a bell, but I looked at the metal anchor at the bottom and it doesn’t appear open like the rest of his bells. I also didn’t see a striker. Plus, the supposed bell shape rests on the ground. But, it’s also 47 years old so maybe Torrens created his bells differently in the beginning?
This particular artwork, complete with hooks, neat metalwork and a subtle open-ended maritime theme perfect for Gig Harbor, is difficult to spot among the trees west of the Civic Center main entrance. But it sure is a pretty one. Torrens’ work can be seen at many places locally. The spots that come to mind are the two bells and one decorative pieces at Uptown Gig Harbor and the salmon-themed piece at Donkey Creek Park along North Harborview Drive.
4. Patricia A. Ebert Memorial
Next to the Harbor Lure is something we almost missed entirely. Good thing I have little explorer kids who inspire my own curiosity to inspect all the little odds and ends of a place.
Resting under a tree is a flat stone memorial marker for former Gig Harbor city employee Patricia Ann (Wilkins) Ebert who died at age 56 in a car wreck alongside her husband, Robert Louis Ebert, on Jan. 2 1981. The Jan. 5, 1981 edition of the The Tacoma News Tribune reported the couple was killed in a head-on collision with a teenager about a mile north of Gig Harbor on Moller Drive in the afternoon. The driver of the other car was Steven B. Westby, 15, who lived nearby and survived the crash, the news report said.
Patricia Ebert worked as the assistant city clerk, an important city administration role, from 1969 to 1981, according to the marker’s inscription. Their obituary notes that both husband and wife were also World War II veterans; she with the U.S. Navy and him with the U.S. Air Force. Although it kinda-sorta looks like she’s buried right there in front of the Civic Center, with the memory marker as a headstone, online records assure me that she’s actually buried next to her husband at Gig Harbor’s Haven of Rest Cemetery.
Civic Center Green
While technically not one of my “four surprising finds,” the Civic Center Green has some cool features. The raised lawn area is located outfront of the municipal buildings, just across the parking lot. It stretches on the top of a little hill with a walking loop and benches. This no-frills grassy area is used for community gatherings like the recent Local Makers Spring Market & Festival and is open for playtime and passive rec use.
Front and center, the lawn features a “peace pole” donated in 2016 by the Gig Harbor Midday Rotary Club. It presents the printed message “May peace prevail on Earth” in eight different languages.
See ya out there!
@two.n.tow
Tonya Strickland is a Gig Harbor mom-of-two and longtime journalist. Now in the travel and family niche, her blog, Two in Tow & On the Go, was named among the 10 Seattle-Area Instagram Accounts to Follow by ParentMap magazine. Tonya and her husband Bowen moved to Gig Harbor from California with their two kids, Clara (10) and Wyatt (8) in 2021. Find them on Facebook for all the kid-friendly places in and around town.