The Safe Passage 97 Project

In the early 2010s, the Safe Passage 97 project was reaching out to landowners along Highway 97 for the purpose of identifying locations for the first of several planned wildlife underpasses to allow deer and other animals to safely navigate the highway. They had a particular set of criteria in mind: the site must lie within an established movement corridor for deer and other migratory species; the land on either side of the highway must be protected from future development, affording animals clear access from either direction; and the ground must dip down on either side of the highway to support tunneling beneath the roadway. Among the only people whose land met these criteria to respond to the partners’ inquiry were Michelle and AJ Engebretson. 

The 95-acre property Michelle and AJ have lived on since moving to the area in 2003 lies south of Tonasket, near the Crumbacher development. The couple loves to observe the wildlife that lives on and moves through their land, from deer, bear, and moose to the signs left by a cougar, never actually sighted in over 20 years. AJ tracks the arrival dates of migratory songbird species each year in a worn notebook. Michelle keeps a watchful eye out for weeds as she rambles over the property and vigilantly maintains a fire-safe perimeter around the house.

Behind their sloping stretch of sagebrush and Ponderosa pine, land owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation extends all the way to the Okanogan River. Anchoring the future passage to the west of the highway is the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Carter Mountain Unit. The perfect site. In 2017, OLT completed a conservation easement protecting the property from future subdivision and further development beyond AJ and Michelle’s existing home and outbuildings. A bubbler was installed on a small spring in the valley below the highway to draw wildlife from the surrounding hillsides to the future safe crossing site.