Fremont Canal Park visitors may have noticed over the past two years that the various benches, also known as waystations, have a refurbished look. Grants from the Fremont Chamber of Commerce and the Fremont Neighborhood Council paid for most of the waystation repainting projects in 2023.
But the waystation near the Dinosaur topiaries, which includes a chess board surrounded by a bench and stool, was recently upgraded because of a 17-year-old Eagle Scout named Rebecca Chastain.
A senior from Ingraham High School and recent Eagle Scout designee from Scouts BSA Troop 100 in Ballard, Chastain started the journey to remodeling the chess board waystation in the Fall of 2024.
The writer, who has a child in Troop 100, provided Chastain with a list of projects compiled from her network in Fremont.
“I was scrolling through the list and something about the chess board just kept sticking out to me. I knew I wanted to build something; that was my main thing,” Chastain said. “Call me sentimental, but I like the idea of leaving my mark in an area.”
Design and Installation of the Chess Board
Leo Griffin, a neighborhood advocate and president of the Friends of Troll’s Knoll, also helped Chastain narrow down her project and connected her with Seattle Parks and Recreation, the named beneficiary of the project since they maintain the Fremont Canal. Starting the process of navigating the bureaucracy of city government had its challenges.
“I kept getting redirected to new people who were going to help. It felt like not as much progress was being made,” she said. Once she was connected with Nick Hocking, a Seattle Parks employee, the project was off and running.
“Nick and I were connected and immediately things started happening,” Chastain said. “That was really wonderful and I was super pleased at how quickly it came together.”
Receiving advice from Griffin, Hocking, and people with construction experience, she landed on a design that included welded steel plates for the table and black and white porcelain tiles for the chess board. Family friends lent tools and resources. “We were really lucky in that regard and I’m eternally thankful to everyone who has lent us tools to use,” she said.
On installation day in early May, Chastain and a handful of fellow scouts screwed in the bench, stool and chess board, capping off a total of 255 hours of work put into the project. She quickly started receiving feedback about the new chess board.
“It was just a table and I replaced wood on a bench but people keep coming up to me to tell me it was really well done,” Chastain said. “It’s obvious to me that the area gets a lot of use and I think even if chess isn’t played there, I’m hoping it will be treated as somewhere to relax and sit for a while because the Fremont Canal is a really beautiful place.”
In terms of upkeep, the Parks Department will take care of the area and there are plans to remove the trellis for visibility and safety, according to Chastain.
Chastain achieved her Eagle Scout rank and will be formally recognized with other Troop 100 Eagle Scouts at the Court of Honor ceremony in early June.
About Eagle Scouts
An Eagle Scout project must provide a service, Chastain said. Many scouts lean on building projects because it’s the most common type, but scouts have pursued other projects, such as planting trees or planning fundraisers and blood drives.
Chastain joined scouts five years ago, shortly after the Boy Scouts rebranded to Scouts BSA and allowed girls to join the traditional program and earn the Eagle Scout rank.
Regarding her path to becoming an Eagle Scout, she said, “it’s been challenging but it hasn’t been as difficult… because I have such a great community around me. I think Troop 100 has been immensely supportive in my journey,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of people teach me some really practical, amazing things. But also, aside from that, they’ve taught me to be more confident. It’s been very fulfilling for me.”
The chess board project taught her lessons about herself and leadership. Clean and effective communication was a skill she had to learn. “I was not as quick to respond to some emails,” Chastain confided. “This project was really valuable because it gave me the opportunity to develop that skill and see the importance of that. Without the clear communication, I don’t think it would have come together as quickly.”
Another challenge that led to lessons learned was that she didn’t have the skillset to cut tiles or weld. “A lot of that was outside my expertise, so another main challenge was figuring out how much I wanted to lean on people and what my leadership would look like,” she said.
“Sometimes it felt like I wasn’t leading as much as I should. By the end of the project, you realize you are leading it. You’re giving people the space to get their work done,” she said. “It’s like servant leadership, you’re guiding people to do what they do best, and you are sharing your vision with them, and they’re helping you out with that. You have to give people a chance to do what they do best.”
Chastain will graduate high school this spring and attend Oregon State in the Fall where she hopes to study anthropology. As she transitions from scouts to adulthood, she comes away with a strong sense of self and appreciation for her troop mates.
“I just really love my troop, and I love the kids and the troop, and I really, really, really want them to be inspired to achieve greater things, because at the core of it, scouting is meant to help you grow and to help you have fun,” she said. “I really want that for everyone because it’s given me that as well, and it’s kind of changed my life a little bit, kind of a lot of it.”
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