Surfer Lot
The Marin Headlands form the northern peninsula of the continental landmass that horseshoes the San Francisco Bay. With dense cities on all sides, the vast tract of open space is an important refuge for rare and endangered wildlife and migratory birds. Today, the Marin Headlands are protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and have been managed by the National Park Service since 1972. Against the backdrop of the gold rush, tech booms, the military industrial complex, hustlers and land spectators these 80,000 acres have jostled for position amidst the hunger of one of most densely populated urban centers on the West Coast. The competing and at times contradictory interests that birthed this National Park and the meaning of conservation in the twenty-first century will center our exploration of the Marin Headlands.
Fort Cronkhite
Before the land was managed by NPS, the Marin Headlands was a sprawling military installation. The cookie-cutter construction of Fort Cronkhite, was hastily erected in the dark months that followed the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. The Fort would remain an active base for the US Army until 1974. The headlands are scattered with the legacy of military occupations, from the early 19th Century prim Victorians that perch above Rodeo Lagoon, to bullet casing, heavy metals, and concrete slabs that lie buried in the soil and overgrowth of bramble. These are the legacy of war-games played out by three generations of soldiers stationed in San Francisco and deployed far across the Pacific.
Fire Dorms, Nursery & NOAA
The neat line of cream and red-roofed structure that were the barracks for servicemen during WWII are now the central nervous systems for park natural and cultural resource management as well as for the stewardship of bay, ocean waters and airspace that intersect these lands. On the left is a station for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where weather and climate data are aggregated. And over here is a building that once housed artillery but is now a greenhouse. Inside, a verdant arsenal of seeds, and cuttings to cleanse and suture a scoured landscape. Every plant that grows here represents many hundred hours of dedicated work. On scraped knees and by sun-burnt hands botanists scavenged steep ravines remote game trails for seeds from all across the park. The seeds are carefully packed with care and brought to the headlands, where they will be cleaned of chaff and awns. Each seed is sorted by species and by watershed. Some seeds are stored, others sown directly into the ground. Other seeds may require heat, acid or the cold of a freezer before they will germinate. Of these precious seeds perhaps a one-tenth will germinate. Perhaps another tenth will survive and grow under nurturing gentle hands to become hardy enough to plant at restoration sites.
Whale Tale
To your right, the traced outline of a blue whale. Contained within the behemoth silhouette are what remains of the bones of a carcass that washed onto Ocean Beach in 1988. In the intervening years, salt spray and precipitation have done their work at returning these bones to the earth. See how the lichen clings to the spongy exposed marrow! But the scale of the giant ribs, pelvis and skull—still discernible against the backdrop of decomposition—are ever awe-inspiring. At the head of the whale have been placed chunks of baleen. The black resinous material segmenting into straight coarse filaments is a keratinous filter that these mammoth creatures rely on to trawl a meal of meager krill from the rich Pacific waters. As the Marin and San Francisco peninsulas jut out into the ocean from the mainland, many migrating whales and hot-blooded fish drive close to the shore. At the mouth of the Golden Gate, an important passage for transport tankers and shipping, whales and other Cetaceans like porous, and sea lions are at heightened risk from the disorientating din of moving ships and fatal propeller strikes. Many of the whales that have beached at Rodeo and south at Ocean Beach in San Francisco have been the casualties of the commerce in the narrow straits that lie between Alcatraz and the Gulf of the Farallones.
Marine Mammal Center
At the top of the hill, sits the Marine Mammal Center. The Center has long served to rehabilitate sick and injured seals and sealions, otters, and elephant seals. And, the Center is an important hub for research that can protect our collapsing global fisheries. Shelved between the freeways, suburban sprawl and the glittering horizon of the San Francisco skyline it is easy to think of the GGNRA as a lonely green archipelago, estranged from the surrounding ecology. It would be easy (but falsely comforting) to also believe that preservation of these little islands makes them impervious. But the ocean waters are a reminder that there is interconnection and entropy at every level. Rodeo Lagoon and the creeks that flow from the park into the bay and ocean feel the push and pull of the tide affected by global forces. Shore and seabirds that roost on the coastal rocks introduce nitrogen and phosphorus in the form of guano, transmitting through their bodies nutrients from the ocean that make the astringent Franciscan soils rich and fertile for plant life. The health of these terrestrial habitats is shouldered by the fertility of our oceans. And as sea levels rise there is certain promise that our ailing oceans will further remodel and sculpt these coastal and intertidal habitats. RCP 8.5 predicts that by 2100 sea levels will rise by as much as 1 meter. RCP 8.5 is a climate scenario developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is what has been bluntly called a “worst case scenario.” Or, what a pragmatist might call business-as-usual. On May 23, 2025 Executive Order 14303 prohibited the National Park, the EPA and all Federal scientists from incorporating RCP 8.5 into stewardship planning and climate futures modeling. Dying kelp forests and trawl coastal shelves just beneath the flat ocean waters. A future that isn’t yet today. It is easy to be unbothered by what we can not see and what feels outside of our control. But the future and health of these lands are permeable to a changing world and the passing of time.
Coastal Scrub
Walking up this road we enter into a landscape of soft coastal chaparral and interspersed grasses. Over 50 years ago, before this was a National Park, these hills were dominated by grasslands that bleached golden in the dry summer. As early as 1793, Spanish colonizers stripped the Coast Miwok people of their ancestral lands. They also stripped the landscape of native vegetation as cattle grazed down the perennial grasses, herbs and brush. Carried in the stomachs of Spanish cattle and horses were seeds of annual brome and rye from Europe and Asia Minor which quickly took hold of the steep slopes. Taking a carving knife to Alta California, wide estância (estates) were divided between wealthy families loyal to Spain, birthing California’s ranching culture. The tradition continued after Mexico won independence in 1821. In 1842 20,000 acres of these headlands were granted by the Mexican government to William Anthony Richandson, a British ex-patriot, who had recently received Mexican citizenship and had built a prominent career as a merchant in San Francisco. The Richardson family would continue to ranch the land they called Sausalito until it was sold and leased to immigrant Portuguese dairy farmers 20 years later. Between 1865 and the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the land would continue to be leased to dairy farms even as it was managed by the US Army. For over 170 years cattle redefined the coastal landscape. When naturalists like Alice Eastwood, Fredrick Clements, and other early ecologists from newly established universities like Berkeley and Stanford began to describe the pastoral coastal, they had no reference for their work except these already transformed rangelands that bore little resemblance to what had been known to the first Miwok who lived here.Protection of these 80,000 acres was only possible after a decade-long fight to prevent an ambitious, avant-garde urban development that intended to integrate the unique, rugged topography, trees, and prairies with reinforced concrete and brutalist design. The project, known as Marincello, would have provided housing to as many as 30,000 people just as the San Francisco Bay Area was beginning to experience the growing pains of the last 75 years. Between the 1950’s and 1970’s the region’s population ballooned with post war optimism and an antecedent tech industry powered by NASA, nuclear research, and integrated circuitry. In the tension between urban expansion and 1960’s idealism, the vision of Marincello was upended through an unusual partnership between local residents, environmental advocacy groups, indigenous activists, the US military and federal lawmakers. The partnership would cement the political bedrock for the formation of the Nation’s first urban national park, and has served as a template for other urban parks across the United States. As a national park, these beaches, hills and historic spaces welcome all people and the Park Service is entrusted with curating a landscape that serves all who visit—upholding a rich history of culture and sensitive natural resources. But creation and preservation of the park is a unique example of the conflicting narratives of human usage and interests. The park's inception may be heralded as a celebration of conservation and an achievement in grassroots organizing. Or, an example of NIMBYism. Bordering the most expensive zip codes in the Bay Area and separated from historically marginalized communities by bridge tolls and erant public transportation, the progressivism of protected lands that serve the noble mission to preserve endangered plants, animals and habitat entreats a Faustian bargain in which the visitorship has long trended wealthy. Evaluating service to the broadest public and ensuring access for all is a constant challenge faced by public agencies like the National Parks. —————After these lands transferred into park stewardship the cattle were removed. Just as quickly as the cattle had reduced the coastal scrub over a century ago, sweet-smelling sages and purple flowered bush-lupin began to take root. Coyote brush with silver haired, wind-borne seeds and small curly leaves moved swiftly, swallowing the yellow-golden pasturage and creating a verdant, lilliput canopy. Beneath the canopy, a home for many native plants, small rodents, rabbit, and quail. After an amnesic trance under the slow rhythm of stamping hooves, the landscape seemed to awake to some deeply-held memory of itself. A process known as succession, ephemeral annual plants were replaced by a complex, indigenous ecology of woody and herbaceous life and perennial grasses. The scrub brush has continued to spread and blanket the landscape, held back only by drought, and harsh rocky soils. Today, this landscape may look something like it did 200 years ago—the molting coat of the half-fed coyotes that pad through these hills. Based on the scant traces of phytoliths (small silicate imprints of the xylem of grasses found in soils) there is little evidence to suggest that grass was a dominant part of the historic headlands landscape. But of course the picture remains incomplete, blurred in an ever changing world. We can truly know the past. Cattle were a crude instrument, but a tool that never-the-less provided necessary disturbance to the landscape, that scintillated the growth and revitalization of a diversity of native plants and habitat features. The species that grew here, the grasses and herbs thrived through human managed fire and historic, extinct herbivores that created conditions unique to a range of species. In some areas of this valley, removal of aggressive non-native species (called invasive species), and controlled burns provide an experiment in replicating these lost disturbance factors. But these traditional techniques can create friction with urban constraints and visitor impact and may be difficult to replicate. In modern times restoration ecology must manage landscapes that are resilient and balanced for new threats like climate change, invasive plants, and human ignorance.
Geology
At right, we can see the cut banks of the hillslope. Notice how thin the soil is? Generations of intensive ranching have eroded the top-soil in some places. In other places we find that the steep slopes and the prolonged decomposition rates mean that soils have always been slow to form and easy to wash away, depositing in the low lying areas. The bedrock is also visible. Here we can see rust red layers of Radiolarian chert. The chert takes its name from a marine plankton found in these rocks. Rich in iron, the chert formed under immense pressure of the ocean floor, before being heaved out of the ocean to form these ridgelines. We can see where the chert shows evidence of folding and bending under the torsional strain of the impact with the Pacific Plate. The chert is hard and brittle, and fracturing along layers of deposition. It has the tight uniform masonry of a brick wall, which makes it more impervious to roots and water percolation.
Seeps and Spring
When the landscape folds and creases we can find bursts of fresh green life. Wax myrtle and willow form a canopy overtopping the low-growing scrub. Yellow-flowering monkey flowers, lady fern and sedges also grow here. Water runs from the hillslope into the ravines carrying with it nutrients and topsoil. Not only does the water run across the surface of the landscape, but through the breaks in the rock. Notice where the chert appears to weep. Like the eyes of some venerated idol, only here, a true miracle. Water, and life! Water that pools at these seeps provides an oasis for riparian habitat, welcoming soft green plants less resilient to the harsh dry summers on the Central Coast of California. The slim seasonal streams and spring that coarse through the gentle contours of the hillslopes will unite in the alluvial basis below. We refer to all the waters that run toward the lush wetlands at the base of these hills as a watershed. That watershed connects with a larger network which includes Rodeo Lagoon and Gerbode Creek which drains the entire Rodeo Valley. Looking past the furthest rolling peaks of the headlands you can make out the intertidal waters that separate the Marin and San Francisco Peninsula. Here we can see the culmination of another watershed—the state’s largest—a confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers which together account for 40% of the California landmass.
Restoration Ecology
Down into the wetland valley below you may have noticed great piles of woody debris and vegetation. Some are piled on black tarps. In other areas you may see that straw has been spread over the bare soil. This is an active restoration site. Over the past decade, the National Parks have been working to eradicate an invasive species called cape ivy (Delairea odorata) from this drainage. Native to South Africa, the ivy reproduces clonally from small bits of fuchsia-colored stem and leaves. Taking root, the vine can quickly overtake the shrubs and grasslands displacing native species. Cape ivy’s capacity to easily reproduce and grow in a broad range of environments gives it certain hardiness as it competes for space. But cape ivy’s true advantage is found in the absence of herbivores, pathogens or other native disturbance factors that can limit these species' spread. Native plants, like the coyote brush that is ubiquitous in this valley, is also voracious in its growth and colonization. Coyote brush is sometimes called a native invasive. However, one important difference between coyote brush and cape ivy is that coyote brush has evolved within the ecosystems it is colonizing and beside the species it is competing with. Coyote brush, while at times rabid, lies in a balance with other native species that coexist with this organism at the level of landscape. But native plants and animals have not evolved to coexist with cape ivy. In their work to remove the cape ivy, NPS seeks to promote a system in which native diversity can thrive.
Hawk Hill Vista
Looking southeast the northern span of the Golden Gate Bridge and Salesforce Tower rise just between the saddles of Hawk Hill. The impressive ridgeline that frames the city has long served as an important research station for migratory raptors. Since 1980, every weekend between August and December, volunteers with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory keep a tally of hawks, eagles, vultures, kites, falcons and other birds of prey en route along the Pacific Flyway. The Red-tailed Hawk or the Peregrine Falcon spiralling on a thermal overhead may be from as far away as the Aleutian Islands bound for Mexico or Patagonia, on a yearly pilgrimage to keep pace with winter. They measure the breadth of their travel by the warm wind on their nape, rather than arbitrarily borders we have scrawled on our maps. Protection of these birds within the bounds of the park is not enough. And in a rare agreement between the United States, Russia, Mexico and Canada the Migratory Bird Treaty protects the sanctity of these birds on their far-flung pilgrimage. As a unique patch of open space along the flyway, the Marin Headlands are an important hunting ground for raptors. In an average year, GGRO reports migrations of raptors that number in the tens of thousands. In addition to identification and tallying, GGRO also operates a banding program. Volunteers spend long hours in structures called blinds waiting for raptors to be attracted to carefully prepared net traps. Once captured the biometric data such as species ID, weight and other morphological measurements are recorded. Finally a band (a small aluminum bracelet with a serial number) is affixed to the bird’s right leg. The bird is then released. Banding, and radio tagging allows the GGRO and other researchers along the flyway to track the migration of raptor and create better estimates of populations. GGRO is the longest opperating community science program in the nation and has contributed to hundreds of scientific publications and endeavors.
Battery Townsley Terrarium
As you approach the ocean you may have noticed the square slice of daylight cut from the furthest hill. Entered within the hill is Battery Townsley. The Battery, like Fort Cronkhite, was constructed during WWII to provide defense against the threat of Japanese invasion. The armaments were never used, but the imposing structures remain embedded within the hillside. Ahead of us is one of the open tunnels that form the Battery. Within the hill and spread throughout the headlands are an array of radar domes, observation decks, tunnels, and fortifications. Through this dark passage, the air is cool, insulated by thousands of tons of rock overheard. Under that rock and the flicker of fluorescent lights 150 men lived within a froth of tunnels now mostly hidden behind rust-shut doors. Exiting into the brilliance of daylight you, the eerie remnants of a battlement. Chipped concrete, streaks from exposed rebar and weedy plants grow here. For years, the park had planned a full restoration of Battery Townsley. But in that space of time, nature was relentless in her own repurposing and remodeling. The great basin in front of you was once the mounting base for a massive anti-aircraft gun. After the battery was decommissioned rainwater quickly filled the basin forming a pool. Over time the water turned turbid with soil and rock that was carried by the run-off. Next, algae grew. Perhaps caught between webbed feet or down, migrating geese brought with them seeds from the last lake in which they swam. The seeds germinated and grew into the yellow flowering primrose, viney starwort and feather hornwort that now populate the edge of the basin. Rough skinned newts were next to arrive. If you peer into the water you can see the newts—with brown mottled backs and brilliant orange stomachs, sunning themselves or floating gently in the water. Then, about ten years ago a park ecologist heard the croak of a frog while walking up to the Battery. This was not the reedy call of the Pacific chorus frog, but the soft mew of the Red Legged Frog, a species both endemic to the California Coast and endangered. In the dereliction of this military site, the shallow still waters and aquatic plants offered the perfect sanctuary for the frog. While the frogs and newts continue to make this basin their home, restoration of the historic battlement must wait. The basin holds water all year. In the winter, the water is high enough for the frogs to hop out of the basin if they choose. But the smooth high wall of the basin holds the newts captive in this accidental terrarium, safe from most predators and undisturbed. And a population of newts, frogs and now aquatic beetles and damselfly have thrived here.
Battery Townsley Vista
As we leave this battlement and walk South, notice the large 16 inch gun. The guns mounted here at Battery Townsley and South of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park at Fort Funston were erected in 1928 to defend a swath of coastline from Halfmoon Bay to Point Reyes against air and sea. With the advent of long range missiles and nuclear weapons, the batteries quickly became obsolete after WWII. But from the Battery we can still find an unobstructed view of the area defended from this position. To the far north we can make out the pencil thin line of chalky cliffs that hang above Drakes Beach; curving out to the horizon, Chimney Rock, Point Reyes. In the mid distance Stinson Beach and Duxbury Reef flank the dark forested ridgeline of Bolinas. In the gentle wave of hills in front of you small creeks and tributaries run out to the ocean bisecting redwood forests, oak woodlands, coastal prairie and sagebrush. If it is a clear day, look west and you will see three shark finned peaks halfway to the horizon. These are the southern Farallon islands. If the sun is high in the sky and there is no glare on the water, on a crisp winter day you may see even further to the North Farallons. In total, these islands are no more than 140 acres and more than 27 miles from San Francisco. These jagged spurts of granite are the last vestige of the Farallon plate, that subducted and melted under the compacting North American and Pacific Plates over 50 million years ago. Traveling to the island, there is only steep rock and in winter a few fleshy green weeds that blanket a place now home only to birds and the temporary residence of researchers.
Strait of the Golden Gate
Walking from Battery Townsley back to Rodeo Beach, we can look South toward San Francisco. West of the Golden Gate Bridge is the tree-lined bluffs of the Presidio and China Beach, where the neighborhood of Sea Cliff dips down to the waterline. The wooded bluffs continue West to Lands End where the straits of the Golden Gate cede to the Pacific. Perched above these bluffs is the VA Hospital at Fort Miley. Looking south into the city, the highest peak, covered in forest of eucalyptus, is Mount Sutros. Atop Sutros sits a tall telecommunication tower, Sutros Tower, whose Red spindly shape forms an erector-set Torii guarding over the bay. In the gulf between the bluffs and Mount Sutros, the soft shimmer of stucco and victorian rooflines of the Richmond and Sunset are bisected by a swath of green—the panhandle and Golden Gate Park. Trailing the breakers from Lands End south we can follow Ocean Beach, all the way to Mori Point and Montara Mountain on the horizon. The unbroken coastline from Stinson Beach to Half Moon Bay is protected and managed by National and State Parks in partnership with other conservation districts. These coastal sites and Marine Protected Areas that lie just offshore and in the Gulf of the Farallones provide sanctuary for diverse wildlife including the snowy plover, killdeer, sea lions, elephant seal, porpoise and towering kelp forests that lie just below the breaking waves.
Headlands Marsh
Descending to Rodeo Beach the straits of the Golden Gate drop from view and with them the view of San Francisco. The neighborhoods and apartment buildings disappear behind Hawk Hill until all that is left in view is Salesforce tower and Mount Sutros. Turning away from the horizon we enter into the protected valley that we first observed from the ridgeline. Each year, summer drought will gild the headlands in auburn color until rain awakens the grasses and herbs in the late fall. It was the golden color of the hills that inspired the name of this gateway to the San Francisco Bay. But this alluvial depression will remain green year round. The sedges and rush that grow in this marsh live in soil that constantly glistens in a film of water pulled from the seeps and springs that push through the surrounding geology. The freshwater marsh provides an oasis for newts and red-legged frogs. Electric-purple flowers of hedgenettle beckon to impulsive hummingbirds. In the tall rush, a chorus of Marsh Wren, Red-winged Blackbird and Western Meadowlark. Lost in the deafening edge of a pounding ocean, the wildlife seems to take little notice of the commotion of surfboards, two-strokes engines, and shrieking children in the nearby parklot.
Rodeo Lagoon
Between the parking lot and the beach a thicket of Baccharis and brambles push through large stones called rip-rap that help to keep Mitchell Road and the beach in their rightful places. During most of the year, you can walk from the road down to the beach. In winter, the rainwater is carried through the valley and down the steep gullies into the Rodeo Lagoon. The water in the lagoon rises until it nearly overtops the little bridge that crosses the lagoon. As the water rises it pushes toward the beach, creating a narrow slough. The water stretches with longing further west but can never quite reach the ocean behind hefted barricades of sand. But then, a winter storm and a king tide, bring high, crashing waves far-up the beach, pulling away at the sandbar. And it seems like any day now, the waters will breach. But they do not. At last, the turbulence of rain, run-off, and waves synchronize in a single moment. The sand can no longer hold. The crescendo of moving water and breaking waves is enough to startle the hardened gulls to flight. In just a few hours the lagoon drains as much as five feet. The lagoon pours fast into the ocean uniting the lagoon with the tidal ebb of the Pacific. After an eternity, the ocean and lagoon become one organism shifting and pulsing with the same tidal force and mixed with the same waters. By spring the lagoon is once again a brackish island, cleaved from the ocean by sand. As the water level drops, the lagoon waters calm and warm. In the stench of summertime algal blooms, brown pelicans replace the willets and sanderlings that prowl the lagoon shores. The pelicans consume the tidewater goby, sculpin and stickleback who make their year round home in the lagoon. River otters and many small birds and mammals make their home amidst the willow and waxmyrtle that crowd along the far shore.
Rodeo Beach
The beach is dark and coarse, a technicolor expanse of green and blue jade, rust and brown chert, black basalts and quartz, and carnelians that glow phosphorescent orange in the low light. The tectonic impact of the Pacific and the North American Plate that gave rise to the steep Marin headlands also formed this strip of beach that separates Rodeo Lagoon from the Ocean. As the Pacific plates continue to wedge beneath the North American plate, the edge of North America has continued to buckle and fold so that the beach you stand on will one day be another Ridgeline in the rinse board topography of this Peninsula. Like a forming wave, already you can see the future shoreline beginning to emerge. Looking out toward the water in the mid horizon on calm days the swells smooth and break like water pouring over the rim of a bathtub as they breach the low wide Centesima reef. Chasing the surf: sandpipers, killdeers and terns. In the boiling ocean you may spot a sea lion or perhaps a surfer. As we move down the beach toward notice the sea stacks that jut-out from the mainland. Sculpted by waves and wind the rocks rounded and tumbled. Watch the tide and you may see a wave push through a hole carved over many years through the foundation of these stacks.
Battery Alexander cliffs
Years of visitors to this coastline have cut deep grooves into the trail that leads up from the beach to Battery Alexander. The soil is red like the poppies that would grow here were it not for the ice plant that covers so much of these cliffs. The ice plant with it’s fleshy leaves and neon pink and yellow flowers grows on viney cords of root that grip at the sandy soil. Where the ice plant grows a verdant carpet that leaves no room for native life. The ice plant was brought here from South Africa by the military, and is now a fixture of this coastline. It was planted widely along the California coast as a way to hold shifting earth in place. To “conserve” the coastline. The ice plant is effective, but nothing can endure the power of the ocean. These cliffs and islands are a constant testament to the chisel of the Pacific waters, as cliff soil and rock slide and sprawl reveal a new geography every year. Not only do the elements and the plants shape this coastline, but the wildlife as well. Bird island is the largest seastack along this coastline. Visit Rodeo Beach between Summer and Fall and the island is the nesting site of shags and common murres. Among these seabirds, the murre is most abundant on these rocks, distinguished by its black body, short face and white belly. The larger and more precarious-looking seabirds that make their temporary home on these rocks are the shags. All black, there are three species of shag that inhabit this coastline. The Pelagic Cormorant which appears iridescent in the sunlight, the Brandt’s cormorant with its vibrant blue throat, and Double Crested Cormorant with its plume of feathers at the back of its head. Watch the rock you are likely to see one of these birds dive fearlessly from great heights into the water in search of fish. As the birds nest on the rock the rust-colored chert is whitewashed in guano. By July, the seastacks appear completely white. Not until January after a few months of rain will the rocks be scrubbed clean. In this way the rocks themselves clock the changing seasons in the Marin Headlands.
Nike Missiles
In 1945, following six brutal years of war, 50 nations convened in the Presidio of San Francisco in a high-windowed stuck building, tucked between dark cypress just East of where the Golden Gate Bridge meets the City. At that hopeful meeting then California Governor Earl Warren remarked that “our future is linked with a world future in which the term "good neighbor" has become a global consideration. We have learned that understanding of one another’s problems is the greatest assurance of peace.” Ten years later that sentiment was forgotten or at very least the optimism of that moment was tempered by the Cold War. Beneath the weathered concrete batteries remain a labyrinth of tunnels and elevators. Constructed in a post-war panic of the 1950’s you stand above one of the Marin Headland’s Nike Missile Sites. These sites were scattered across the Bay Area, holding a reserve of what looked like overgrown lawn-darts. The shiny aluminum projectiles pointed skyward until 1974 when the missile base was decommissioned. Borrowing from Greek mythology to dignify the inhumane reality buried within these bunkers, the missiles stockpiled here were named for Hercules and Ajax. Nuclear capable, the missiles defined a new topography of geopolitics and the local landscape. Today, spritely kestrels and pelicans replace the formation of F-102 jets from nearby Travis Airforce Base. With the missiles long gone, hare and badgers are the only matters of consequence to be found burrowed within these hills. Fox holes have replaced fox-holes. Somehow, in the trample of soldiers, jeeps and artillery the fragile shattered elements of this landscape could piece themselves back together.
Point Bonita Light House
Great flocks of gulls and Pigeon Guillemot move un-hurriedly overhead. On daily pilgrimage they flock from Alcatraz Island, which lies just beyond the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge, where they nest in great numbers throughout the spring and early summer. From here, you can just make out the former prison’s bright walls and towers. Not only the origin of gulls and many other shore birds, the island played a central role in the birth of this national park. In the history of conservation and the debate over public lands this small dreary island was the seed.For 19 months between 1969 and 1971, 89 Indigenous activists occupied the island, forming a coalition known as the Indians of All Tribes. Lead by Richard Oaks who founded the nations first American Indians Studies Department at SF State, and Dr. LaNada War Jack, then an organizer with Third World Strike in Berkeley, the occupation sought the repatriation of the island on the basis of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie which promised that “all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indigenous peoples who once occupied it.” The island, taken as the possession of the Spanish in 1769 was passed to the Mexican and later US government who occupied the space as a military fort and later as a prison. But as of 1962, Alcatraz stood abandoned and strictly for the birds.Without the occupation of Alcatraz there might be no Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 1972, following a tumultuous extirpation of the occupying activists, the island was incorporated within the nation’s first urban national park. The verve of the occupation could not be quarantined at Alcatraz as members of the public were now conscious of new understandings of the nature and ownership of public lands. Entrusted with the conservation of both natural and cultural resources of the island, in the Headlands and on the green areas of the Presidio and Fort Mason that skirt San Francisco the park has enshrined the struggle of this indigenous resistance. That history can be found in the writings of the activists and the messages they left on the walls of the prison in 1970. And, in the sunless brick underbelly that forms the cornerstone of Alcatraz prison. Here in the late 1800’s Modoc, Paiute, and Apache prisoners of war and Hopi fathers who refused to send their children to boarding schools were incarcerated. The Occupation would also lead Congress to enact the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, increasing the sovereignty and autonomy of tribes. Outcomes of this Act reverberate here in the National Park where not only the inception but increasingly operations of the park are guided with input from local tribes. However, even today these rights extend only to those tribes with federally recognized status. And the rights of federally recognized tribes to exist as nations within nations teeters on the seesaw of an unstable political landscape. Today, the Department of the Interior and the Federal Bureau of Prisons affairs propose re-opening Alcatraz, a decision that will require the demolition of the fragile buildings. It will also be the demolition of many advancements in indigenous rights and the protections for our environment.
