San Rafael’s Canal, meeting the S.F. Bay shoreline, may have been visited or occupied by humans for tens of thousands of years, migrating from the north, most recently by the Coast Miwok for over ten thousand years, “since time immemorial”, and today by more recent descendants of European, Asian and Pre-Columbian cultures. It is a story with hidden chapters. We are creating it over two miles of the San Rafael Shoreline Path, an interactive timeline, a history of the people and their relation to the land and water, in the voices of its occupants, through archeology, written and spoken evidence, and creative imagination. This is a collaboration of historians, scientists, artists, writers, and poets, and the living community of the Canal.

The story will be told at twenty interactive interpretive stations along the San Rafael Shoreline Path – in English and Spanish – to both adult and youth readers, with text and illustration, audio and video. Each tenth of a mile walk will feature a new chapter.