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The Little Skookum Ecosytem is a small rain-fed catchment and coastal embayment located in western South Puget Sound, and could be part of the greater Totten Inlet Ecosystem including Oyster Bay and Kennedy Creek to the South. The watershed is the center of the Squaxin Island Tribe, once the territory of the T'Peeksin Band. Highway 101 crosses the mouth of Skookum Creek midway between City of Olympia and City of Shelton. Highway 108 runs up the valley crossing over the low divide into Wildcat Creek, in the Cloquallum Creek Watershed in the Chehalis River Basin. To the north is the Mill Creek Watershed in the Hammersley Inlet Ecosystem, The watershed has extensive Shellfish Aquaculture activities in the shallow Skookum Inlet, as well as both large and small private Forestry holdings. The watershed has a low human population density and includes a well-studied Cutthroat Trout population. Approximately 500 people live in the watershed, and the watershed is on a state highway between McCleary and the tribal center of the Squaxin Island Tribe.
Notes
- The headwaters are substantively owned by Green Diamond Resource Company which has large private Forestry lands in the surrounding landscape. Port Blakely Tree Farms has timber holdings on the South Shore of the inlet.
- There is a lumber mill in the valley currently owned by Alta Forest Products
- An area of development called Taylor's Crossing up the hill towards Shelton, references the long local presence of Taylor Shellfish Company.
- Squaxin Island Tribe has acquired for conservation substantial acreage of old farmlands in the bottom lands in the Little Skookum Valley, mostly from historical cattle grazing operations. The Skookum Creek bottoms include many large wetlands converted to pasture. Extensive restoration analyses of Skookum Creek have been completed by the Tribe.
- There is a small WDNR Natural Area Preserve on the North Shore including the mouth of Elson Creek. WDNR completed the reconstruction of a degraded channel back in 2004. [[1]]. 2022 WWRP funding is being used to expand that reserve.
- South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group, Squaxin Island Tribe, Mason Conservation District (MCD), and Mason County, and Washington State Department of Natural Resources have completed restoration actions in this system.
