• American Camp prairie and Mount Finlayson.

    San Juan Island

    National Historical Park Washington

  • American Camp Visitor Center on Daily Schedule

    The American Camp visitor center will be open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., daily through Friday, June 2. Grounds are open sunrise to 11 p.m. The English Camp visitor center opens June 2. Grounds are open 8 a.m. to sunset. More »

Intertidal Organisms

Purple Seastars
Rebecca Smith
 

Don't miss an opportunity to go exploring at low tide. Tidepools in American Camp are especially rich with sea anemones, pink, purple, and orange sea stars, sea urchins, crabs, periwinkles, dogwinkles, great tangles of kelp and the largest chiton in the world: the gumboot.

Intertidal communities are valuable vital signs of important changes in the near-shore marine ecosystem as well as marine water quality. They are vulnerable to stressors such as pollution (e.g. oil spills), harvest, trampling, and global climate change.  

Links: 

University of Washington Friday Harbor Laboratories
http://depts.washington.edu/fhl/ 

Fishing and Shellfishing
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/ 

NCCN Intertidal Monitoring http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/nccn/vs/intertidal/intertidal.cfm

Did You Know?

Winfield Scott

Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott's Mexican War campaign was a set-piece example for cadets in both Europe and North America, but he was most celebrated as a peacemaker. He had resolved two other Anglo_american border disputes before coming to San Juan Island. More...