SEQUIM — Cecil Dawley changed the face of Sequim by building apartments, downtown shops and more throughout his hometown.
But he also left something larger and wilder to the North Olympic Peninsula.
Upon his death last year at 89, Dawley deeded 131 acres of wooded land to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He wanted the land, which he’d inherited from his parents, to remain a wildlife sanctuary in perpetuity.
“It is a tremendous gift,” said Cecil’s widow, Helen Dawley.
But “Cecil was a very private person. He didn’t like ‘a lot of fuss and feathers,’ as he used to say.”
Instead of a funeral, Cecil wanted Helen to scatter his ashes over a hillside on his property, which lies between Sequim Bay and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribal Center.
Afterward, Helen, 81, held a small reception for family and close friends. She moved into Sequim, bringing a few of the flowering plants from the Dawley property to transplant into her small yard.
Then she set about finishing the last task her husband had asked her to take care of.
“He said a bronze plaque would be OK,” she said.
So Helen ordered it and had it placed on a boulder on what is now the Dawley wildlife refuge. A private dedication ceremony will be held there Saturday.
Array of species
Fish & Wildlife project leader Kevin Ryan said the Dawley land is home to an array of species, including owls, hawks and deer.
It’s too woodsy, however, to be an elk sanctuary, Ryan said.
Cecil put a pond on his property for waterfowl, and he and Helen welcomed hundreds of ducks and geese some winters.
“He planted fruit trees for the deer, and then the eagles had their nests up there,” Helen added.
“He loved nature,” she said, “and he loved that property.”
So Cecil chose to give his land to the federal — not state — agency he believed would protect it.
“In this day and age, with so much construction going on, this will always be a sanctuary,” Helen said.
Changing the land’s status would require an act of Congress, Ryan said, adding that the Fish & Wildlife Service will preserve Dawley’s timber forest, some of which is old-growth.
The tract will not be open to the public since some of its roads are unstable, and because budget cuts have affected the Fish & Wildlife Service’s capacity to maintain amenities in such refuges, Ryan said.
“We don’t have the funds to do what we need to,” so the Fish & Wildlife Service is, in cases like this, returning to its core mission of wildlife first.
