About Us
After enjoyable and productive careers in hospital
quality measurement and financial public relations, we moved to Birch
Bay, Washington in March of 2003. Birch Bay is 10 miles south of the
Canadian border, 40 miles south of Vancouver and 100 miles north of
Seattle. Our main city, 20 miles to the south, is Bellingham, a friendly,
liberal town, the home of Western Washington University. In addition to
being popular for retirees, this area has diverse industry that produces
one of the fastest growing economies in the U.S.
Before we moved, we secured a roomy rental with a
good view; we spent the next six months searching for a place of our
own. Finally, rather than build, we settled on a small cottage that we
could afford to buy and renovate without breaking our nest egg. It is
located on a tidal creek frequented by herons and ducks; sometimes there
are otters. Soon after, we were successful in buying a vacant lot that
protects our view of the bay, the San Juan Islands, and the mountains of
Vancouver Island.
We were writing articles and taking photographs
before we left San Francisco. Here we produced articles with pictures for
a national small-farm magazine and a series for the Bellingham Weekly,
reporting on local politics, Sikhs, Slavic Pentecostals, local
personalities and Bruce Mau’s ‘Massive Change’ exhibit at the Vancouver
Art Gallery. We also sold pictures to the Portland Oregonian Sunday
travel section on Chuckanut Drive and Port Townsend. Now we are working
on new subjects including our nine-week trip to New Zealand and Australia
last spring. We are also writing a blog focused on happenings in
Birch Bay - see
www.birchbayblog.blogspot.com
We are active in helping to bring salmon back to our
creek by growing and planting trees to enhance the habitat for fish,
monitoring a remote site incubator raising fingerling chum, and observing
for returning adult chum. In winter, we count eagles; in summer, we set
traps to make sure that dreaded green crabs have not entered our waters.
(Green crabs are the predators that destroyed the Dungeness in San
Francisco Bay and much of the West Coast – see
Articles for more on them.) This past August we spent two days
prepping vegetables when the Lummi Nation entertained some 90 tribes that
paddled their native canoes from throughout the Northwest.
We both attend meetings of a steering committee that
is building a path to incorporation. Birch Bay would be the first new
city in our county in over a hundred years. Ruth chairs a task force that
is preparing on emergency preparedness. Al campaigned in our neighborhood
for a levy to support trails and playgrounds.
When we meet people here, they often ask where we
lived and what we did before coming to Birch Bay. We say we can’t
remember.
Contact us at
prudentventures@comcast.net.
Prudent Ventures site Copyright © 2007 by Al Krause & Ruth Higgins
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