Looking Back: Never Never Land of Point Defiance Park

My Grandmother and I, mid-90's
at the front entrance to Never Never Land
Photo by my mother

Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there was a place called Never Never Land. It was a walk-through storybook attraction at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington. In the midst of the woods, you followed a trail past vignettes recreating scenes from various fairy tales. 

This charming attraction opened in 1964 and closed in 2001. Many of the figures were put into storage around that time. In 2010, the last of the structures were demolished after years of vandalism and weather damage. A year later, the building the figures were stored in was set on fire. 34 figures survived, while the rest melted. In 2021, the surviving figures were auctioned off.

Today, we are going back in time to the mid-1990's, when I visited the park a couple times. Here, I have pictures taken by myself and my mom. Enjoy my early photography!

(Photos that are listed as "Photographer unknown" were pictures in my photo album, but I am unsure if I took them or my mom. The pictures I can verify as mine are ones where the composition is, what I would now describe as... nontraditional. The "Photographer unknown" photos look to have a better-developed compositional skill level, but who knows? Maybe I did take them.)

A friend and I with Humpty Dumpty (center)
Photo taken by my mother

Never Never Land puppet show
Photographer unknown

Little Dutch Boy
Photo by me

My Grandmother on the trail by the Gingerbread House
Photo by me

Old Mother Hubbard's house
Photo by me

Me at Old Mother Hubbard's house
Photo by my mom

Three Little Kittens
Photo by me

Simple Simon Met a Pieman
Photo by me

Ding Dong Bell
Photo by me

Little Bo Peep
Photo by me

3 Billy Goats Gruff
Photo by me

Goldilocks and the Three Bears
(Baby Bear is blocked from view by Goldilocks)
Photographer unknown

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf
Photo by my mom

Close-up on the balloon from the previous photo
It has the Never Never Land logo on it
Photo by my mom

Some friends and I at the home of Jack Sprat
Photo by my mom

My friends and I viewing Peter Rabbit in Mr. McGregor's garden
Photo by my mom

Mr. McGregor and Peter Rabbit
Photo by me

Jack and Jill 
Photographer unknown

Little Miss Muffet
Photo by me

Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son and I
Photo by my mother

A random squirrel in a picnic area
Photo by me

Never Never Land brochure my mom saved in her photo album

Never Never Land brochure my mom saved in her photo album

Today, you can still walk through the woods that once was Never Never Land. While most landmarks are gone, a couple remain in place: the wells from Ding Dong Bell and Jack and Jill, the painted trees by the 3 Bill Goats Gruff, the stage in the back of the park, and the stone wall and pond from the Little Dutch Boy.

This park is still fondly remembered. There is a small community push to bring back some version of Never Never Land to the Pacific Northwest. Here's hoping! Check out the Never Never Land Tacoma Facebook Page.

Sources

Never Never Land LLC

Does long-lost Never Never Land have a future at Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park?

Facebook: Never Never Land Tacoma

YT: Never Never Land Tacoma Tour! (2021)

DIG! Kids, Dirt & Discovery 2016

DIG! Kids, Dirt and Discovery's dig site

Two weeks back, I volunteered for one of my favorite Colonial Williamsburg programs - "DIG!: Kids, Dirt and Discovery."

When I worked at Colonial Williamsburg, the DIG! site was my favorite site to oversee (you can read some my enthusiasm from last summer at the end of Part 5 of the 35/15 Photo Project). Luckily, they liked having me, so they invited me back this summer as a volunteer!

From the first summer, a lot of progress has been made. For little legs, there are now stairs for entering the site.

Dig site early summer 2015

Dig site late summer 2015

Dig site July 2016

Let's walk through a day at the DIG!. Each day is broken up into four 50 minute sessions. Each session consists of a brief introduction, digging, sifting, and categorizing.

Digging
This is pretty self-explanatory. Each archaeologist-in-training is given a pair of gloves, a trowel, and a bucket. Using their trowel, they scrape away the dirt. Everything they find, from dirt to artifacts, goes into their bucket.

Due to site excavations in the 1940's with less-detailed archaeological practices than today's, there are plenty of real artifacts in the soil, with none of the normally-found dirt layers. This site is the perfect place for kids to get a first taste for archaeology.

There are three groups, each one is led by one of CW's archaeologists. Each has their own section of where to dig.

Kids getting last minute instructions before
they get digging!

Dig time!

Looking down the stairs at the dig

One one side of the excavation, you can start to see some of
the higher brick features of the Archibald Blair storehouse
peeking through the soil. The bottom of the foundations
are 7 feet below the ground level!

Sifting
Once the digging portion has ended, the dirt collected in the buckets is dumped onto a screen over a wheelbarrow. Even if you think you found everything you dug up, there could be something you missed hidden in the dirt. The dirt gets pushed through the holes, while the artifacts stay behind. All the artifacts found get bagged for future analysis.

Sifting!

Pushing dirt through the screen

All the excess dirt from each session is wheeled away to a pile in a corner. Every month or so, a truck comes by to take the dirt away so it doesn't take over the property.

Mount Sifted Dirt. Not a catchy name.

Categorizing
After everything is screened and bagged, the leaders bring the archaeologists-in-training back to a shaded picnic table to go through what was found. They help guide the kids to discover and identify for themselves the different kinds of artifacts that are present.

Sorting artifacts by types

These kids are using wands with magnets in
them to see if any rusty-looking globs have
metals inside.

DUG!
After the last DIG! session, the site closes down for a quick clean-up, then reopens as a free-flow site for DUG!. As the name suggests, this program centers around things archaeologists do after they dig everything up, so there is no digging during this time. The program is different every day. Sometimes, it's cleaning artifacts, or putting together broken pottery examples. Sometimes, it's a Q&A with an archaeological expert or a special guest (The Father of American Archaeology, Thomas Jefferson, has visited from time to time).  The day I was there, it was cleaning artifacts. Artifacts can be delicate, so wet toothbrushes are used to wash off the dirt. For smaller nooks and crannies, we used a long toothpick-like stick.

Cleaned artifacts!

More treasures found

It's always fun to answer people who ask, "What did you find today?" "Oh, you know," I say, "Lots of broken glass, rusted nails, bones..." And they seem perfectly fine with children handling these normally-abhorred objects because they are artifacts. Ah, well. The present's trash is the future's treasure.

Other objects usually found at the site are pieces of tobacco pipes, oyster shells, broken ceramics and porcelain, buttons, bricks, mortar, and, of course, plenty of dirt.

The Prentis Store next door was a car repair shop before it was restored, so there have been a few automobile items found. It can be an interesting mix. There have been other oddities, but you will have to come by the site yourself to learn about them!

It's like a puzzle with lots of scattered and missing pieces.

After the dig, check out the DIG! artifact display case in the Visitor Center. It has had at least three changes since being established.

Visitor Center Artifact Display
Fall 2015

Visitor Center Artifact Display 
Winter 2015/2016

The latest update has been "Curated By KIDS!"

Visitor Center Artifact Display
Summer 2016

I think this is a great program that allows the future another opportunity to learn from the past.

It's a fascinating site. Most of what you see around Williamsburg is a final product of hours and hours of behind-the-scene work. Here, you get a peek at how it's done. I'm so glad DIG! came back for a second summer. Hopefully, it will continue after the Archibald Blair site has been excavated.



For DIG!, a free ticket reservation can be made the day of at any ticketing location with a valid admissions pass. Ages 5-16 are welcome. Capacity is limited to 20 kids/session, so the earlier you get your ticket, the better. The 9:30am session requires no ticket, it is first-come, first-serve. I recommend coming earlier in the day, as the sun heats things up, shadows disappear, and the soil become harder to dig into.

For DUG!, the site is free-flow 3-4:30pm, no ticket is required.

The official blog for DIG! can be found HERE.

(Want to still dig without getting dirty? Do a virtual dig in the non-CW online game Excavate!)

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A little background on me and Archaeology. I love archaeology. It's still on my list of things I want to do when I grow up. I was a master sandbox digger starting at a toddler age. I proudly boasted I would find the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island (that's still on my to-do list). I was fascinated by Pompeii. Around the turn of the millennium, I did a CW kids dig at Carter's Grove. Apparently I also toured the house, but I can only recall the dig. That dig's artifacts were all planted, and the dirt had layers, so it was a bit different than DIG!.

Me digging at Carter's Grove
June 26, 2000

After that, I don't think I had any other archaeological experience before last summer. It has been great to reconnect to (or should I say, dig up?) a lost part of me.

Me sifting for overlooked artifacts
with CW Archaeologist Libby

Thank you to Meredith, Libby, and Victoria for letting me help you DIG!

CNU Archive Donation

   This past summer was pretty busy for me. Along with The 35/15 Photo Project, I moved twice, held a full-time job, and performed in a community theater show. On top of all of that, I did yet another project! (I wondered why I never had any time) (The fall has kept me busy, which is why this is posting now instead of a few months ago)

   Since 7th grade, when I got my first digital camera, I have been taking pictures of everything. For a good bit of that, I've been surrounded by construction/renovation projects. It's fun to come by every week/day and see what has changed.

   During my time at Christopher Newport University (CNU), the college built and tore down several buildings. The campus of 2015 looks very different from when I started in 2010.

CNU campus via Google Earth. Areas in red roughly mark
what has been altered on campus between Summer 2010 to Summer 2015.

   Since I lived on campus, I saw and photographed all of the changes for fun. When I was getting close to moving out of the area, I started thinking on what could I do with these images. I am a chief believer in giving back to your community, so I decided to donate a portion of those to the CNU Archives, the record keepers of the college's history. As well as holding important documents and memorabilia, they have loads of pictures from 50+ years of college history. I interned for them in early 2012, scanning and filing things for their digital online archive SAIL. They have also helped me out from time to time in any research project I was looking into.

   In late May, I put all of my CNU construction photos together. I had taken 7,347 pictures. I knew this was not an acceptable number to donate, so long story short, I whittled it down. On August 12th, I had brought that number down to 2,049. Still a big number, but to be fair, there are almost 50 different categories I cover, giving an average of 41 pictures per category. The pictures cover every building constructed, every building demolished, any change that happened in established buildings, and a few sections covering random events during my time on campus (topping out ceremony, time capsule opening, etc). Some cutting decisions were easy (blurry, no actual importance, another pile of dirt), many were hard. I had to really push myself to keep cutting it down. I am proud to say the pictures that remain are essential to tell the CNU expansion story.

   In late August, I finally donated the pictures to the Archives. They are still developing a plan of action (it's not every day someone donates over two thousand photos), so none of the images are available to the public yet.

   All of these pictures were taken outside of construction fences, so these were shots anyone could have taken. To my knowledge, no student or staff member did anything like this.

   We live in a time where there is ample amount of documentation happening, but there is no organized method for what people should do with it all. So it's spewed out onto social media, to be forgotten about. It's very wasteful. No one's really thinking about the future, they are more about living in the now. There is nothing wrong with that, but the fact remains the present will be history tomorrow. Your documented memories could be worth something. That is why I try to preserve the past and present. Sometimes, you don't know what will have importance.


Back to the images, here are a four samplings I randomly picked:

Santoro Hall, Summer 2011

   Summer 2011, Santoro Hall (my freshman dorm). They installed new air conditioning vents on the roof that summer. During the same time, they took down the front corner roof structure (pictured in the bottom right, down to its metal beams). They never replaced it. Santoro looks incomplete without it there. Pictures of Santoro with its topper still cover CNU's website and promotional material.

CNU Front Entryway, Summer 2013

   Summer of 2013, they tore out the whole road in front of the Trible Library to create a shared pedestrian/vehicle road. Pictured above is when they had finished clearing the old concrete and asphalt away, getting ready for the new layout.

CNU, Fall 2010

   This view seems to be nondescript, but its value comes from hindsight. This view barely exists today. The road, parking lot, sidewalk, and trees are gone. The Wise Woods, to the right, were cut down for Luter Hall. The building at the end of the road is the Freeman Center, pictured in the midst of its expansion. The covered path was for students to safely enter/exit the building while construction happened around them.

Christopher Newport Hall, Summer 2014

   Here we see Christopher Newport Hall under construction. It's a massive building. CNU's scale for story height is huge compared to usual building standards. This shot is one of my series-shots, where I took an image from the same vantage point over and over. This is from the corner of the center brick partition of the access ramp for the Trible Library.

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There are plenty of more stories to tell, but that will have to wait until CNU opens the pictures up to the public.

I will leave you with this: When you donate your memories, you gain immortality. It is you who is narrating your life to the future. Someone will look at your name, and wonder "... Jalenec? Gilinic? Jell-O Neck? Glad I didn't have that last name."