By KATE POSS

Special to the News-Times

Pacific Rim Institute’s new executive director has a knack for creating events that attract and interest visitors.

Muri Mitschak — hired in early April — invites the community to Prairie Days May 2-4 at the 175-acre property in Coupeville. The property is home to a 4.5-acre remnant of pristine landscape undeveloped through the centuries.

“It literally is what it was when wooly mammoth walked here,” Mitschak said in an interview.

A resident of Whidbey Island the past nine years, Mitschak was formerly employed by the Port of Coupeville —which owns/manages the Greenbank Farm — before stepping up to her new role at PRI. While at Greenbank Farm, she organized such events as the popular late summer Harvest Faire, among others. She also orchestrated last September’s Cider Festival as a fundraiser for PRI featuring local food, entertainment and events for the whole family. The events attracted more than 5,000 visitors.

“People are hungry for that type of interaction,” she said.

Growing up in the Seattle area, Mitschak later worked as a project manager for construction, spending years working internationally. She also lived in New Zealand for eight years, working as an IT specialist traveling to small towns throughout the two-island country. Detouring from her busy career, she moved to Whidbey Island.

“I never got to enjoy Whidbey while traveling,” she added, saying her mother lives here. “I started working for the port so I didn’t have to travel around the world. I got to know the nonprofits. Interacting with the different organizations, vendors, and food trucks, we became a big family.”

Mitshak looks forward to cultivating her Whidbey connections and increasing public awareness for the Pacific Rim Institute by hosting community events.

At Prairie Days, people learn about PRI’s rare and restored prairie, oak savanna and forest, including the golden paintbrush, which dwindled to threatened status with only 10 locations in Washington state and British Columbia. Just a few patches were documented on Whidbey Island’s west coast until 2002, when they were re-introduced to the prairie. Now, the population has grown to more than 40,000 plants.

“One of my biggest missions is to increase public awareness of the amazing rehabilitation and restoration projects PRI has done with native plant species and is continuing to do so,” Mitschak said. “There are trails that are dog friendly, a historic barn built in 1911, prairies, savanna and forest for the public to enjoy from dawn til dusk.”

Prairie Days events include:

Native plant sales from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 1-6 p.m. on Sunday. PRI cultivates 30 native species in its greenhouse for restoration efforts and home gardens.

Native plant basket raffles.

Guided Prairie tours Saturday at 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. See native wildflowers in bloom.

Free educational talks Saturday: “Natives, Invasives and Foraging” by PRI Board Member Dr. Ioana Popescu at noon. “Taylor’s Checkerspot Butterfly” by Adam Martin from Ecostudies Institute at 3 p.m. The endangered butterfly depend on the golden paintbrush as food for their larvae.

Stargazing and bonfire at 9 p.m. Saturday, weather permitting.

This prairie, according to the PRI website, “is a glacial outwash prairie, created when the glaciers receded 10-12,000 years ago. The melting waters flowed over this site creating swales and peaks as well as rifts and nearby kettles. Our L-shaped property has forests on each end — but the center — approximately 135 acres — became prairie.”

This prairie was cultivated for centuries by Coast Salish, the Whidbey Skagit tribe, skilled at using fire to enhance the soil for food crops such as camus root, a staple in their diet. Later on, after colonization, the land was converted into traditional farmland in the early 1900s.

Washington State ran a game farm raising pheasants from 1957 to 1997. The property was later sold to and managed by the Au Sable Institute until 2008. PRI acquired the property in 2009 and has since restored 40 acres of prairie to native plants that once thrived there.

Mitshak said she’s excited to take PRI to a new level, eventually converting the former game buildings into glamping cabins. She’s working with the state and county to post directional signs along Highway 20 and Parker Road. She encourages families to picnic on the prairie, getting to know the land and taking part in its continued preservation of rare landscape.