CHIMACUM –– With a team of five and a special product known as “Elephant Snot,” workers for the Jamestown S’Klallam have removed a pink-and-white “I ♥ Miranda” graffito from Tamanowas Rock, one of the tribe’s most sacred sites.
“It was very tiring,” said Bill Laubner, manager of the tribe’s facilities.
“The crew applied the Elephant Snot, scrubbed extremely hard with handheld wire brushes and then washed off the residual graffiti with the backpack pressure tanks.”
Along with Laubner, the crew of Steve Johnson, Trenton Adams, Sam Bugge and Ilan Jones backpacked in the graffiti-removal supplies to the 150-foot-tall rock east of Anderson Lake State Park near Chimacum beginning shortly after sunup and finishing at about 3 p.m. Sept. 11.
Tribal officials learned July 25 that someone had painted the tag.
The same tag also has been painted on the side of the Uptown Theatre in Port Townsend, where it remains.
Laubner said the tribe initially sought outside experts to remove the paint, but a bid of $1,500 for initial efforts led it to seek alternatives.
Fortunately, Laubner had experience working with funeral homes and cemeteries and knew that Elephant Snot — a product made by Graffiti Solutions Inc. of North Saint Paul, Minn. — had been used to remove graffiti from headstones.
“After researching the possibility of using the same product on Tamanowas Rock, we concluded that it would be worth the try, with very minimal chances of damage,” he said.
The crew applied the Elephant Snot, allowing it to penetrate and loosen the paint particles, and then scrubbed by hand with wire brushes before spraying it off with water from the backpack sprayers.
They made five trips from a base camp to the painting on a steep trail along the rock’s base to refill the sprayers, Laubner said.
The tribe had offered a $500 reward for information about the person who painted the graffito but got no response, according to Gideon Cauffman, cultural resources specialist for the tribe.
Tamanowas actually is made up of a pair of basalt masses that shoot up through a dense forest.
It is sacred to the tribe and other Salish Native Americans.
The 43-million-year-old rock was used as a lookout for hunters, for refuge from reported tsunamis and for quests of spiritual renewal by tribal youths.
The Jamestown S’Klallam tribe purchased the rock and 62 surrounding acres from the Jefferson Land Trust for $600,000 last December.
Tamanowas Rock, aka Chimacum Rock, was listed on the Washington Heritage Register in 1976, and the tribe is currently seeking to have it added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The land trust had bought the property from Washington State Parks, which bought it from developer George Heidgerkin.
Heidgerkin purchased the property in 1993 with plans to build as many as 46 homes around Tamanowas Rock.
Since purchasing the Tamanowas property, the tribe has made a concerted effort to limit motor biking, campfires and especially rock climbing.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
