Seward Park is a well-used and popular park due to its playground and scenic biking/walking path which outlines the peninsula; but few know that the park’s interior is a real old-growth forest and contains some of the area’s oldest trees.
A forest is said to be “old-growth” when it has not been impacted by serious disruptions such as logging. These forests are ecologically distinct from forests regrown after their destruction, as they typically have far greater biodiversity, a lower proportion of invasive species, and complex tree structures with multilayered canopies.
Only a small proportion of America’s old-growth forests remain, and once disrupted it can take anywhere from a century to several millennia for a forest to regain old-growth characteristics, depending on its biome. This proportion is even smaller in urban areas like Seattle, which is one of the reasons why this park is so special.
The forest covers about 120 acres on the northern two-thirds of the park. Some accounts suggest that the presence of poison oak in the area may have been what saved it from being logged. The poison oak is still there, so be sure to stay on the marked trails!
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