Blind Slough Swamp Preserve

The North Coast Land Conservancy's Blind Slough Swamp Preserve protects the best example of a Sitka spruce swamp remaining in Oregon. Once common in coastal estuaries from Tillamook to Alaska, this habitat type has been mostly lost in Oregon and Washington to logging, diking and other development. The preserve is bordered on three sides by Columbia River sloughs and channels, and it adjoins the Lewis and Clark National Wildlife Refuge. Blind Slough Swamp is in an area well known for birding, canoeing and kayaking opportunities. The overstory on the preserve is dominated by Sitka spruce, some of which are 400 years old. Younger western red cedar and western hemlock are also present. Along the channels are dense thickets of coast willow, sitka willow, twinberry and nootka rose, with abundant sedges, wildflowers and bulrushes. The preserve provides habitat for an abundance of birds, fish and other wildlife, including bald eagles, osprey, river otter, beaver, coho salmon, nesting yellow warblers, olive-sided flycatchers and rufous hummingbirds.

In 1992 the James River Corporation gave a 672-acre permanent conservation easement to the Nature Conservancy. Hampton Affiliates increased the preserve in 1996 with a gift of 135 acres. A purchase from the Ziak family, which for many years had protected the area for wildlife, completed the preserve at a total of 897 acres. In 2019, the land was transferred to the North Coast Land Conservancy. Each spring and summer, teams of volunteers remove invasive blackberry, English ivy and purple loosestrife to protect the native habitats.