Gold Park “Place of Medicine” Ethno-botanical Garden

On a raining Saturday morning, I arrived to the Gold Park located at Lynwood few miles from Edmonds Community College. I was part of a volunteer group to help out to remove invasive species, build pathways and clean the surrounds of the park.
When I arrived, I saw around 40 people attending this volunteer program. Before we started the instructor Thomas Murphy introduced us some of the members from the tribe of Snohomish County and other tribe from Seattle.
It was a great experience, better that I though. By that time I injured my right arm few days before and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do much, which it didn’t happen at all and I was very happy with the outcome.
First, around of a warm and cozy fireplace in the middle of a raining day, there were few kids members of the tribe wearing their typical outfits dancing around of the fireplace, while the other members were signing. Then, they started a ritual with a pray evoking the nature and the living beings. While the volunteer activity started they continue signing and also some members started sharing stories of eagles and other animals on how they work together to reach a common goals.
Those metaphors were a great message on how people also have to work together in order to find equilibrium and preserve the nature in different ways. Also, on how every day we need to be appreciative with the world on where we leave and with the nature that surround us. That was basically on how we share part of the day doing on the park, sharing and working together to reach the goal of maintain and protect our beautiful nature.
The instructor Thomas Murphy from Edmonds Community College (EdCC), started talking about the history of the property and why exist now. The Gold Park is called a place of birth, a place of medicine. The property was bought from a married couple Barbara and Morris Gold around 1950’s. Mr. Morris was an obstetrician that practiced his career in this house through earliest 1980’s serving the community to pregnant woman and their children. Then, they decided to sell the property to City of Lynnwood, but in order to protect their beautiful forest the only condition was that the land would be preserved as a park, which the City agreed.
Ms. Barbara Golden was the person who builds the beautiful forest with trees that now are the only few tall trees that can be seen from Hwy 99. She did a great job preserving the trees, but she also did something that has brought a lot of consequences to the forest, she planted a beautiful plan that grows on the shade called Yellow Archangel, English ivy and blackberry but this plants are invasive species, so when the Gold family left and not body didn’t maintain the plants those invasive species grow in their own way and they took a lot of the area displacing the native plants.

Later on, the City of Lynwood asked EdCC if they would like to take more active role on the park, so there were some proposals from Mr. Murphy and one was to build an ethno-botanical garden, which is the study of people and the interaction and use of the plants. So with the support of the community and the EdCC students, the city approved the proposal and the Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School program is running since 2010 at EdCC.
The Golden park is approximately 6000 square feet surrounded by beautiful nature among them ferns, salal, fairybells, trillium, huckleberries and bleeding heart. It has display cases with the names of the native plants and their role and uses to be identified by their visitors.
The goal of my volunteering day at the Golden Park was to help and remove some of the invasive species such as Yellow Archangel and English ivy. Those plants are perennial and they are fast-growing in the forest habitat no allowing other wildflowers to grow. This is one of the reasons the King County encourages control of those plants because they spread quickly without control forming dense patches. Once those species were removed, it helps to clear up the trails and give back the beautiful view of the park.
This was definitely a learning experience. I didn’t have idea about names of many plants, how those plans could be used or managed. Some of the purposes of this project are to restore and create a healthier ecosystem and educate the community about the history and native plants and animals on this place.
In conclusion, the relationship between people and plants is very important for us to survive. Plants affect every aspect of our lives and indeed, without them life as we know it would not be possible at all. Plants not only regulate the concentration of gases in the air for us to be able to breath, but are also the only organisms capable of transforming sunlight into food energy, which all other forms of life depend upon. People are able to live all over the Earth because of the plants. It is impossible to think about an environment without plants. Even environments like the hot desert or freezing polar regions have plants. The importance of how people interact with the plants and animals it depends of the overall health of the environment as Professor Thomas Murphy explained. We should never forget, that nature, and plants in particular, are the basis of our existence physical as well as spiritually they form the very roots of our human culture.
As the message from the members of the tribe, “Everyone has to work together to save the planet” Works Cited
"Gold Park." Welcome to Lynnwood, WA. City of Lynnwood. Web. 15 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.ci.lynnwood.wa.us/Content/Community.aspx?id=365>.
Topacio, Valerie. "Lynnwood's Gold Park Gets a Face Lift." Online posting. Triton Review.
Edmonds Community College, 17 May 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.edcc.edu/stulife/documents/Triton_Review_Archive/2009-
2010/Spring/050510.pdf>.