Fifteen thousand years ago, the Vashon Glacier, which helped carve Puget Sound, retreated and left behind hundreds of thousands of acres of grassland prairies, which were peppered with Garry oak trees, wildflowers, birds and butterflies. The prairies rolled and disappeared over the hills of the South Sound as far as you could squint.
Most of them since have been developed, cemented over and turned into freeways and business parks. Somewhere around 3% of the prairies remain today.
The South Sound prairies of Pierce and Thurston counties were preserved and cared for by the original stewards of the area, the Nisqually people, led by Chief Leschi…