About

Rockland was founded in 2015 by Jodi Rockwell and Shawn Landis.  Jodi is a potter, mother, educator, artist, organizer and all things administrative for Rockland.  Shawn is an artist, contractor, designer, community builder, and father.  As artists, we believe deeply in the necessity of uninhibited space to create, generate, rest and immerse in nature and artistic community (or solitude, if you so choose) as a means to create and contribute to culture. We dreamed up Rockland as a way to be able to offer this kind of space to our creative community and beyond. Our model is enabled by renting the property for the majority of the year, in order to offer it to a group of residents twice yearly, for free. 

Located on the Kitsap Peninsula across the Salish Sea from Seattle, Rockland Woods is on native Suquamish land, nestled on 20 acres of 100-year old, second growth forest with lake access. The climate is lush and damp with seasonal wildlife and flora. Owls, beer, deer, coyote, frogs, ferns, cedars, skunk cabbage, trillium flowers, Rhododendron trees, moss (!), bleeding hearts, bats, native yellow lily, native blackberry, maples, Douglas Fir…and more! Belfair, WA, is the nearest small town at the southern tip of the Hood Canal.

Land Acknowledgement

Written by the Suquamish Tribe

“Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.”

Chief Seattle  1854

We would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is within the ancestral territory of the suq̀ʷabš “People of Clear Salt Water” (Suquamish People). Expert fisherman, canoe builders and basket weavers, the suq̀ʷabš Suquamish Tribe live in harmony with the lands and waterways along Washington’s Central Salish Sea as they have for thousands of years. Here, the suq̀ʷabš live and protect the land and waters of their ancestors for future generations as promised by the Point Elliot Treaty of 1855.

Mission

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a framework, Rockland strives to provide the base layers of the pyramid (food, shelter, love, belonging, safety) with the aim of enabling residents the possibility of reaching its peak of “Self-Actualization”. 

Hybrid Business Model

Professional Development