SEQUIM — Sallie “Spirit” Harrison said she will sing songs she has written during the first leg of a 200-mile protest walk when she appears at the Sequim Farmers Market at noon today (Saturday).
Harrison’s “Walk Across the Olympics” from Port Townsend to Lake Quinault is to encourage discussion of Navy plans to expand electronic warfare training on the West End, using EA-18G Growler jets flying from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
Potential jet noise is a major concern of the 59-year-old woman who lives in unincorporated Snohomish County.
She and her husband, Doug Benecke also own property on the Duckabush River, she said.
Her long walk is “a way to get people talking about why we need to preserve the peace and quiet, beauty and health of the Olympics,” she said.
After a parade on Whidbey Island on Sunday, Harrison left Port Townsend on Monday.
She stayed at a friend’s house in the Dungeness area Friday night and plans to play guitar and sing songs — her own and Pete Seeger’s — at the Sequim Farmers Market at the corner of Sequim Avenue and Washington Street at noon today.
The market is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“The Olympics Are Our Home” is one of the songs she will sing, she said.
It is one of several she has penned during her walk. All are inspired, she said, by the natural beauty of the North Olympic Peninsula and by the responses of the people she has met along the way.
“It’s been awesome, even though I have blisters all over my feet,” she said today.
“I’m struck by the experience I’m having. People really love this place.”
Harrison plans to be at the Port Angeles Farmers Market on Saturday, June 20 and reach Lake Quinault on June 27.
She may get to Port Angeles early. In that case, people will see her around town dressed in bright pink.
Right now, she has a traveling companion.
An old friend, Louise Arakaki, has flown in from the island of Kauai to walk with her until she returns home on Monday.
She and Arakaki built a tree house and lived in it long ago in Hawaii, Harrison said.
Arakaki is not the first to join her on her walk.
“One woman in Port Townsend walked eight miles with me,” Harrison said.
“People pull over all the time,” she added, estimating she has talked with some 200 people so far.
“They all want to preserve this place,” she said.
Harrison said that the “overwhelming” sentiment she has heard is that “military training not an appropriate use of this beautiful place.”
The Navy has proposed an $11.5 million expansion of electronic-warfare-range activities on the West End.
The Navy has requested a permit from the U.S. Forest Service to deploy three mobile, camper-sized electromagnetic transmitters on 12 Olympic National Forest logging roads in Clallam and Jefferson counties and Grays Harbor County.
The National Forest Service expects to decide on the permit early next year.
