Dwyer Elsaesser Final Report MC Edits.Pages

Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report Final Evaluation Report Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship Sea Education Association 2015-2016 Fellowship Year Timothy Dwyer (W-160) http://bit.ly/2kksMKM Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report Project Summary Awarded the 2015-2016 Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship, I skippered my classic sloop Whistledown from her home port of Friday Harbor, Washington through the passages and inlets of Puget Sound on an exploration adventure reaching as far south as Tacoma Narrows. Between 29 July and 28 August, 2016, my rotating crew of volunteers and I were following in the wake of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1843, America’s first oceangoing scientific and cartographic mission, which visited the region in the spring and summer of 1841. Where the scientists and sailors of the “Ex.Ex.” were unable to search beneath the waves for their biological specimen collections, we had the benefit of a floating, surface supplied scuba system for exploring the emerald sea, and an underwater camera system for documenting our discoveries. To see the journey in pictures, visit: http://bit.ly/2kksMKM Itinerary Prior to the voyage south, the crew spent a few days sailing Whistledown in her home waters of the San Juan Channel along San Juan Island to check systems and evaluate diving procedures for the newly acquired equipment. On 6 August, we left Friday Harbor for central Puget Sound via the Saratoga Passage, sailing, diving, and making stops at Spencer Spit State Park (Lopez Island), Deception Pass State Park (Fidalgo Island), the town of Langley (Whidbey Island), the town of Kingston (Kitsap Peninsula), Blake Island State Marine Park, and the city of Des Moines where we transferred crew and reprovisioned the vessel. From Des Moines, we continued south, exploring Quartermaster Harbor (Vashon Island), Gig Harbor (Kitsap Peninsula), Point Defiance, and Fort Nisqually (City of Tacoma), before heading north by way of the Colvos Passage to Blake Island State Marine Park and the hamlet of Harper (Kitsap Peninsula). A final crew turnover and provisioning run Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report happened in Elliot Bay (Seattle) before we continued north, stopping at Port Madison (Bainbridge Island), Port Gamble (Hood Canal), Mystery Bay State Park and Fort Flagler State Park (Marrowstone Island), Port Townsend (Olympic Peninsula), Stuart Island State Park, Roche Harbor (San Juan Island) and Friday Harbor. Historical Connections The Ex.Ex. bestowed over 300 place names on the waterways, islands, and peninsulas of the southern Salish Sea. We visited or passed among many of these on our voyage past Jones Island, Yellow Island, Spencer Spit, Saratoga Passage, Apple Tree Cove (Kingston), Blake Island, Three Tree Point, Quartermaster Harbor, Vashon Island, Point Defiance, Gig Harbor, Colvos Passage, Elliot Bay, Bainbridge Island, Port Madison, Point No Point, Foulweather Bluff, Port Gamble, Hood Canal, Port Ludlow, Marrowstone Island, Mystery Bay, Port Hadlock, Port Townsend, Mosquito Passage, and Stuart Island. Though many of these places had been named by Spanish and English explorers half a century earlier, the Ex.Ex. went about prolifically remapping and renaming sites. The reason behind these resurveys was simple: the Ex.Ex.’s commander, Charles Wilkes, was taking a step toward establishing American sovereignty over the Northern end of the Oregon Territory. Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report In 1841, the Oregon Territory stretched from the Pacific’s edge to the Rocky Mountains from modern-day Northern California to Southeast Alaska. International negotiations had been successful in drawing the border between Canada and the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. The Oregon Territory remained sparsely settled by Europeans but claimed by several nations. Twenty years prior, the American and British governments, in an effort to prevent hostilities over the region, agreed to joint governance. At one time the two nations called an indefinite postponement of further negotiation unless the other insisted on the debate, which must be renewed only after one year’s prior warning. In this political climate, the Ex.Ex. was tasked to investigate the Salish Sea region examining the coastline ensuring the American government had quality information in negotiations for commerce routes and harbors. When Whistledown's crew visited the historic Fort Nisqually near Tacoma, we learned a great deal about the significance of Ex.Ex. in the regional history of the US and Canada. Fort Nisqually was established by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in 1835 as an outpost for traders along southern Puget Sound near modern-day DuPont, Washington. Today, the historic Fort Nisqually has been relocated 25 miles north and restored as a living historical museum within Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. Many of the buildings originally constructed during the 50-year history of the fort have been moved here, along with period clothing, furniture, tools, and most interestingly, historical documents. The HBC was known for its meticulous record keeping offering historians rare looks into the day-to-day lives of frontiersman and trappers of their era. Despite this reputation, we were surprised to learn from Fort Nisqually staff that all records of the Ex.Ex. visit from 1841 had disappeared. In fact, all records from the nine years prior to 1846 had gone missing. In 1846 growing tensions of the settlement of Oregon Territory lands had prompted negotiations of the Border Treaty - placing a boundary between US and British lands. Negotiations were held in Victoria, British Columbia. The meeting required HBC records transported north for official inspection; during their time in Victoria, all HBC records were lost. Based strongly upon the recommendations of Lieutenant Wilkes and his Ex.Ex. crew, the United States entered these negotiations insistent on placing the US border north of the Strait of Juan de Fuca ensuring American access to inland ports by a sea route other than the tempestuous Columbia River. Ultimately, this conference set the border between nations at the 49th line of latitude. The British effectively ceded all of Puget Sound to the Americans. Fort Nisqually staff Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report shared rumors that the records of Ex.Ex.’s visit to the Fort were rediscovered in 1920, but no other clues to their whereabouts have emerged since. The narrative that survives of the Ex.Ex.’s geopolitically important exploration is the American account preserved in the writings of Wilkes and his officers. Biological Explorations Throughout the project, we completed 18 scuba dives exploring a diversity of habitats from the southern Straight of Georgia to southern Puget Sound. The ecological communities of this region would have been almost entirely inaccessible to the scientists of Ex.Ex., which relied on trawls, dredges, and other surface collections to acquire specimens. Using the equipment provided by the Elsaesser Fellowship, our team was able to visit these communities to witness and document behaviors of organisms within them. There are more than 3000 marine invertebrate species in the Salish Sea. The understory of the shallow kelp communities of Puget Sound are home to around 30 varieties of sea stars and sea cucumbers, soft-bodied animals that fill a number of ecological niches. Looking at an echinoderm, especially one preserved in ethanol, you would be hard pressed to recognize its to keystone role in its community. In the rocky bottom world beneath the kelp canopy, sea stars cruise the crevasses seeking out sponges, bivalves, snails, and even other stars. Many species have developed specialized defenses to shield themselves from these highly mobile predators. Their echinoderm cousins, sea cucumbers in the genus Cucumaria, have adopted a more passive strategy for capturing prey: they raise sticky tube feet from amongst the rocks to catch small organisms drifting by. Hovering underwater as a diver we watched as these blaze-orange fronds combed the water column for a midday meal as their equally predatory but more energetic cousins scanned the seafloor for prey. Sea stars were heavily impacted by a wasting disease in 2013 and 2014, their populations plummeting throughout the northeast Pacific. Our team was pleased to spot individuals of several once-common species during our dives in the San Juan Islands, Deception Pass, and off of Sunrise Beach near Gig Harbor. Even in reduced numbers, they are still formidable predators able to access all manner of microhabitats among and beneath the kelp canopy. Another habitat we explored in a manner quite different from the Ex.Ex. crew were central Puget Sound’s eelgrass communities. Eelgrass beds are ecologically important and sensitive habitats that persist over soft-bottom regions with relatively low water flow. Eelgrass beds are a nursery providing shelter and food structure for the young of dozens of different marine species Armin E. Elsaesser Fellowship 2015-2016 Final Evaluation Report from sea slugs to crabs, herring to salmon. Diving near Blake Island we were able to take-in an entire ecological community on a single five-foot stalk of flowering eelgrass. On this blade, thin red seaweed sheets formed a featherlike fringe, adding further structure for the amphipods, sea slugs, and stalked jellies calling this single plant home. In the mild current, kelp crabs ride the undulating grass stalks while carefully harvesting the red algae blades. Striped surf perch patrol the underwater savannah, nibbling copepods, amphipods, and anything else dislodged by the flowing water. Beneath the canopy and disguised among the shoots, flatfish like starry flounders and sanddabs lay in wait for prey. None of these dynamics could be detected from a trawl catch. At first glance, the uniform silt layer covering large swaths of the bottom of Puget Sound seems almost devoid of life. But on closer inspection, there is much occurring in these environments as well.

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