Seward Park’s 300 acres of greenery should be hard to miss. But somehow I did. After tapping my steering wheel behind a creeping train and winding through the grey of industrial Seattle, I finally found it. The sign for the park seemed to mark an invisible boundary, and once inside, the sounds of the city were abruptly replaced by the rustling of trees in the wind and the jingling of dog leashes.

The park sits on a peninsula that looks like a sea turtle’s flipper curving into Lake Washington. It is a strange oasis of foliage, tucked against Lake Washington on one side and South Seattle and various neighborhoods on the other.

In 1892, Seattle park superintendent E.O. Schwagerl recommended that the city purchase what was then called the Bailey Peninsula for use as a park. Many of Seattle’s early residents never thought the city would develop this far and argued against it. However, in 1911, the city purchased the entire peninsula for $322,000, and the park was dubbed Seward Park, after William H. Seward, the secretary of state who helped purchase Alaska from the Russians in 1867.

Seattle has grown up around the park and butts up against its boundaries. The Lake Washington Bridge is visible from the shore of Andrews Bay, where lifeguard chairs stand empty on the beach this time of year.

“Most days I go and take a walk,” said Peter Olson, who works at the park. He suggested the 2.5-mile trail loop that runs along the peninsula.

“On a day like today, don’t miss it,” he said, referring to the rare sun and crisp fall weather.

Olson is the director of the Seward Park Clay Studio, which has operated out of an old bathhouse on the shore since 1969. The place is well worn, and a dry, warm reprieve from the blustery day. Goliath gas kilns hulk in one room, the cracked brick radiating warmth, while people spin pots on wheels in another. Tables and shelves are crowded with plates and vases and sculptures.

The studio began in the 1960s when the city started turning its bathhouses into art havens with its “Art in the Parks” program. Eventually the money dried up and the Seward Park Clay Studio became a nonprofit. Today, it is sustained mostly by the income from classes and the rent from its 15 resident artists. The UW collaborates with the studio, as does the Seattle Art Museum, and classes are offered every quarter. Olson said there is a wide range of classes, suitable for those four to 80 years old.

The studio itself is one of the few buildings in the park, Olson said. The area is primarily green space, with forest and wildlife.

“There are pairs of nesting eagles and herons,” he said, looking over the water from the back stoop of the studio.

The conspicuous lack of buildings was a deliberate decision by Seattle’s parks department, according to Gail Gatton, the director of the Seward Park Environmental and Audubon Center.

“There was a need for as close to a wilderness experience as you can get in the city,” she said. Because of this, Seward Park is managed by Seattle Parks and Recreation as a wildlife park.

One of the few buildings, the Audubon Center operates out of a house built in 1927 and recently renovated the historic building to include sustainable materials. There’s a wall made of pressed plant waste and Gutton’s office has cork floors.

“We wanted the renovation to tell the story Audubon wanted to tell,” she said, referring to the use of environmentally friendly materials and the Audubon Society’s mission to promote environmental stewardship and protect natural ecosystems.

However, because of the size of the space and the purpose of the program, the building is only used as a jumping-off point for the ccenter’s classes, which can include 100 or more students, from middle school to high school.

“We consider the park much more of our classroom. The building is nice to get out of the rain,” Gutton said, laughing. “We introduce them to the concepts, then bring them into the forest.”

Seward Park has the largest remaining old-growth forest in the city of Seattle. Ten different paths weave through the peninsula, bringing visitors through different kinds of ecosystems.

“There’s oak prairie savannah, a bit of an outwash from the glacier days,” Gatton said. More than 13,000 years ago, the second continental glacier carved Lake Washington out of the land, as well as Seward Park. This ecosystem supports Washington State’s only native oak, the Garry Oak.

The park also has freshwater ecosystems, and students can have a hands-on experience with water chemistry. The center also teaches forest ecology.

Visitors can hike through the park even on rainy days. The forest has a thick, high canopy, Gutton said.

“Many of [the trails], if not most of them, are covered by this canopy.”

Gutton’s favorite part is the northwest quadrant. In that part of Seward, past winter storms brought down big trees, altering the landscape and creating new habitats for salamanders and other species.

However, she said there are many great parts of the park and proceeded to tick off a list.

“The trail that goes around the park has fabulous views of Mount Rainier,” she said. “At the north beach, you’ve got a great view of the urban skyline. There’s an upper loop for weekly bike races during the summer.”

When not in the center building or in the forest, Gutton said they often bring students up to the park’s traditional Greek ampitheater, built in 1953.

“Just last week we had 240 kids come from one school,” she said. “We met them outside and walked them up to the ampitheater. It’s got great acoustics.”

One of the other few buildings is an old fish hatchery, previously run by the UW, Gutton said. The University has left its mark in other ways as well. The volunteers at the Audubon Center include students, participating in service learning through the Carlson Center, and the center will also host a Carlson Civic Fellow, wrote Chris Millow, the volunteer coordinator and a naturalist, in an e-mail.

To leave the park, I walked through a meadow that slopes up from the shore and skirts around the clay studio to the parking lot. The ground was soft and springy from the rain the night before, and my feet crunched over dropped needles and branches. This part of the park had been under water until 1917, when Lake Washington’s water level dropped after the construction of the ship canal. This grassy expanse now leads to Seward Park’s swimming beach and probably hosts many a picnicker during the summer.

Looping through the parking lot, I glimpsed a tree-lined road running along the water — a part of the park not yet explored. That’s for another day and another adventure, I thought, making my way past the park’s boundary and back into the city.

Reach features editor Erinn Unger at features@dailyuw.com.