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EPISODE FOUR: Brewery Park at Tumwater Falls · Talk Thurston to Me

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Talk Thurston to Me, where we are exploring the people, places, stories, and experiences that make Thurston County an unforgettable place to visit.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Shauna Storm, CEO of Experience Olympia Beyond.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And today we are discovering Brewery Park at Tomewater Falls.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't just a conversation about a beautiful park.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, it is.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a place where nature and journey and community all come together right in the heart of Tomewaters.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be diving into that story today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And here joining me to tell that story is Todd's with the Olympic Tomewater Foundation.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Todd, welcome to Todders and Timmy.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just start off with something that might surprise people.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody was visiting Brewery Park for the very first time, what would they be amazed by, surprised by?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's something that they might not expect?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have to give just one?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the answers are so various on that.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: My team breaks the rules all the time, so you're allowed to as well.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: All right, all right, all right.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, maybe just a couple.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think when people walk from the parking lot to our plaza area, and there are many ways to enter, and they haven't been here before, there's a real sense of awe for this little gem of a space that you know is down in this river canyon, and you wouldn't know was here if you were driving down Capitol Way or Highway 101 necessarily.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's just this amazing space that kind of transports you physically and mentally, most people that I talk to, even emotionally, for that period of time that they're here.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really palpable.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the awe that people feel is something that would surprise people.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: From an uh organizational perspective, I'll say what surprises people every day that I talk to is the fact that this park is privately owned.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: And this is not a city of Tumwater Park, it's not a Thurston County park, it's not a state of Washington park.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And all of them have great parks as well.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: But this park is privately owned and has been privately owned by the Olympia Tumwater Foundation since 1962.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So we've owned and managed it since then, and most people aren't aware of that fact.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is interesting that it's a private park and it's such a beautiful community asset for our region.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had a couple team members just go visit this afternoon and they were wowed, they're new to the area, new to the organization.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And commenting on how close it is to the freeway.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then you've happened to this magical wonderland that takes you to a completely different both physically but also, like you said, emotionally and you're just surrounded by nature, the falls, you don't even hear the freeway anymore.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really wild that that asset is just so accessible, and especially because of that private nature of it.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the really cool things, there's one component, I'm literally staring out my window right now at our upper pedestrian bridge where people are lined up 30 deep across the bridge watching the salmon run this time of the year, which is an amazing spectacle onto itself.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that visceral feeling that you get when you're exposed to it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: But what people don't understand too after that first take is if you scratch beneath the surface here and start to understand how this place started to take shape over the last few decades, but it's not just decades, it's hundreds of years, even thousands of years, millions of years, even that story is so compelling.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: When we talk about tumwater falls overall, we have crescent basalt here that was formed by these huge lava flows 56 million years ago.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: So what we're standing on today, and what the river is cascading over, was formed 56 million years ago.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the glacier that started the formation of this canyon was 2.6 million years ago.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: So this space is older than us 80 years today.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's been forming and it continues.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a living river that continues to take shape today.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's part of our role as a foundation, is to make sure that it's well cared for.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: One of our priorities organizationally is to be a steward of this beauty that we see here at the park.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: You had mentioned the salmon and how people were lined up watching that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a little bit about why there are salmon there and why people line up to watch it this time of year?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then also if you could tell us what is the best time to watch these salmon run up the waterfall.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: I would say the last two weeks of September are really the golden hour, the magic time for the running of the salmon.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: You got a good chance really early October as well.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's a good chance that they're still here.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: The start of September, you're starting to see them.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: But the last two weeks of September, that's really the sweet spot.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's mainly Chinook salmon, and they're returning through the Bud Bud Inlet and they're entering into the Schutes River, and then they're moving upstream into Burry Park at Tumwater Falls.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: They're doing that due to the fish ladder that's in place at the park here.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: That ladder is activated around early September.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And as I mentioned, that run becomes more and more visible during that time.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: The falls themselves, the lower falls, historically presented a major barrier for fish coming upstream.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: It just wasn't physically possible.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Pretty amazing creatures, but really wasn't possible for them to get up that waterfall.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the state actually started planting chinook in the river in the late 1940s.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: They constructed a fish ladder in 1952 that allows the salmon to bypass the falls.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And later it was extended even further upstream.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So the salmon around the visitors see today is really hatchery supported.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: The salmon move through that fish ladder up to the Department of Fish and Wildlife facility, the hatchery, at the upper end of our falls, just above the falls.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: The fish are collected there for spawning.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Then they're taken to other hatchery facilities around the state for rearing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Juvenile fish are returned to the chute system to acclimate before they release.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: As visitors are here, they can see those salmon moving up through the ladder, sometimes taking a break as they push upstream.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: In particular, there's some really cool eddies where people can see really clear as day on either side of a pedestrian bridge towards the upper end of the park.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: Our park's about a quarter mile loop trail overall.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's 15 acres to walk.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: The entire loop trail is, depending on your pace, 15 minutes, maybe half an hour, something like that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Another great place to catch them outside of the bridge is the viewing area at the hatchery.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was installed a few years ago.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Department of Fish and Wildlife added a great new facility there.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's glass that our guests can see the mature salmon through.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Also in the ponds up above, you can look down and see the salmon there.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it's an amazing process overall that connects us all to this space as Pacific Northwesters and visitors to this area as well.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I have children that have gone through our elementary schools here in Olympia, and we joke in my family that's like by the time you get out of Olympia elementary schools, you could have the master's in salmon.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's yeah, so it's part of our culture here in this community.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's certainly part of our culture.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I'm already learning so much, and my eyebrows are like up to the ceiling on listening to you talk from like the basalt.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So my understanding that at the top of the dischutes, do they load these salmon up into like a truck and they're taking them somewhere?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what's happening?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am not an expert, but I won't go, I won't press, yeah.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I believe what they're doing is they're loading the eggs into there, and then they make their journey, and then they become a juvenile salmon, but then they bring them back into a truck and release them in the springtime into the ponds again, and then they'll release out into the river.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And they imprint in that space, and that's why they're coming up.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's here or Kennedy Creek in our community or other spaces, they know where they came from and they want to head right back there.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's fascinating.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the salmon are here primarily in September.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's peak salmon season.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: But Tumwater Falls really is a year-round destination that's accessible all year.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there and I've seen families, I've seen young families with strollers and teenagers and couples, elderly couples or elderly people, visitors of all ages, all backgrounds really find something special and can enjoy with the falls.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: We talked early in the episode about how they feel when they arrive.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering when somebody spends time at the park, what do you hope they feel once they've left?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is it different than uh or the same?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think it depends who we're talking about, but I think a lot of people that come through the park really come through and they leave having to some degree communed with nature in their own way.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: So when they're leaving the park, there's that sense of peace that they're leaving the park with.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: The vibes at the park are just so positive here.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: I've had other positions where the culture is different depending on where you are.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um in this space here, what I look outside of my window every day is people with smiles on their faces, kids running around joyfully.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I would say a sense of peace and a joy leaving the park, really.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we want to do as a foundation in the space that we're growing into is that stewardship space.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been doing it through maintaining the park for years, but how do we help educate those folks as they're walking out of the park feeling that way on how they can be part of that and how they can support whether it's this place or other natural spaces as Washingtonian specific Northwesterners that we love and embrace because it's not one person or one foundation that helps.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a community.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: We recently started a program, the Friends of the Falls program, that is intended through membership programs to support what we're doing here.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have any government investment in operations, day-to-day operations at the park.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we're looking to our community to help us with that.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: Other big news for us in the future that will really change the face of the park in a positive way is we're remodeling our current office building into functionally what we're calling a history and nature center.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a space that people can enter where our current office is above the falls, into when they come to the park or when they're leaving the park to help them understand what they've seen, not just from a natural perspective, but also from a historical perspective.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: The first American settlers that started the first permanent American settlement on the Puget Sound came here first, Michael T.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Simmons and George Bush.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So telling that story, we think is really important.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: How the river over the decades in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s was really a working river.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Bristmills, sawmills really created industry.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: I presented at the chamber recently, and I joked around Michael Cade wasn't there, but you know, Michael would call it an economic cluster back in the 1960s.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's truly what it was, and it grew from that.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we went from there to hydropower and innovation and really harnessing the river for power.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: And those were some of the first lights around Olympia and Tumwater were coming from the harnessing the power of the river.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, I can't not talk about Leopold Schmidt and the Olympic Brewing Company starting in the 1890s and then moving through the 1900s as well, starting the Olympia Brewing Company here, and it all had to do with the water.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that water took shape starting 56 million years ago and created these artesian springs in the area that led to those brewing conditions that today we talk about with reverence, but that was a real thing, and this place that we exist in here today was really formative to all of that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was really neat for you to touch on so many different elements of history and then also looking to the future of what's next and how you're going to tell that story.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, is there something about the park that you hope never changes?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that we're trying to make sure we preserve in the park is natural setting and in a lot of ways, but certainly a natural setting in terms of native plants.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Invasive species are all around us right now, and it's really a heavy lift for us to ensure that they don't take over the natural environment within the park.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we're investing a lot in removing native species.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess a twist on your question would be to say to get us back to that space and keep us to it in a space.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we're partnering with a lot of great groups, including the Squawkson Island Tribe, to help us ensure that we're creating that space that was here since time immemorial and go back to that space again.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the big things that Thurston County is really known for is for our access to outdoors and having a treasure like this in our backyard that's so accessible is really beautiful.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take us in a different direction as we wrap up this episode, and I'm going to put you on the spot with a very important Thurston County question, and that is this coffee, wine, beer, or food, which one are you defending for our area?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Shauna, you're killing me.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Boy, I might have like a 1A and 1B on that one.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have to say my family lives in the South Capital neighborhood, and the Wildwood Olympia coffee roasters is right around the corner for us.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a hard time going away from that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, when we travel, we're bringing our ground coffee and sometimes our filter.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we're drinking Olympia coffee in Southern California and Bend, Oregon, and in Utah this summer.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: So all of that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: So somewhere between those, I'm going to say, probably.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our team was just talking about Elk Burger and the local meat that they're selling and the local brews, and it's so neat.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then just tying this back to Tumwater Falls and that brewing history and the water that really played into such a significant part in our food systems and what we're really known for.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have traveled all over the country, and people know it's the water.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's centered right there at Brewery Park at Tumwater Falls.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So as we wrap up today, we've talked a little bit about what makes Brewery Park and Tumwater Falls so special.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to have the final word today.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thurston County is.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Can you finish that sentence?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thurston County is.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I want to say community.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean that as a noun and a verb.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think when we're at our best, we're acting as a community that while we can't all agree on everything all the time, we share a lot of the same values as a community.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this space that we've talked about today is a perfect example of that and something that we can rally around.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a lot of that sprinkled all over our community.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what makes it special to me.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love that answer.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody wants to visit Tumwater Falls and Brewery Park, where do they start?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they find you?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we're 110 to Schutz Way southwest.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And whether you're coming off of I-5 or 101, you're coming down Capitol Way, you know, pretty easy to find from all those.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: We are kind of tucked in there, but find the parking lot and then you'll hear the roar of the waterfall.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to say folks listening have heard about all things brewery park at Tomwater Falls, but Todd gave us so many breadcrumbs to dive deeper into and explore more on our own.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So really want to encourage everyone to go visit it for themselves and then tell visitors about it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more information on Brewery Park at Homewater Falls at experienceolympia.com and more information on the area.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I also want you to meet Ollie by Gali.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ollie by Ali is your guide to discovering more places to go, things to do, and adventures to find throughout their stink county, because sometimes the best adventures aren't the ones you plan, but they're the ones you discover on your own.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Ollie by Gali is there to help you customize your experience in the palm of your hand.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Todd, thank you so much for being here today.