By Ruth Lor Malloy
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
PORT TOWNSEND, Washington.
Live oysters you can pick up off the beaches pry open and eat on the spot for free. Clams
you can dig at low tide, take to a fire, and steam. Meaty Dungeness crabs you can net
yourself. The seafood doesn't come any fresher than those in Washington state's Olympic
Peninsula.
It is also cheap, unless a game warden catches you. Of course you should get a license,
carry a ruler, and learn about your limits. It's best to hire a guide or make friends with
a local who is willing to share his or her favorite spots. The government web-site shows
where the shellfish beaches are, but some places are better than others. It's exciting
when a clam rake brings up butter clams big enough to eat.
If you don't want to dirty your hands or get sand and salt water on your shoes, you can
just go to a local supermarket during the October-through-April crab season. Crabs can be
already cooked and taste just as good as in a restaurant. They're cheaper too.
If seafood is not your thing, the north Olympic Peninsula also offers a
variety of mountain trails to climb, great tall timbers to uplift your spirits, and a
stunning rain forest at which to marvel. It has a unique native museum, the result of a
mudslide almost 500 hundred years ago, which while tragic, preserved thecontents of a
whaling village for future generations, like in Italy's Pompeii, nature created a time
capsule.
The Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park gets about four meters of rain a year, the
most rain of anywhere in the U.S. Consider yourself lucky if the sun is shining. Take
high-speed camera film. Strangely enough, a few kilometers away in Sequim, southeast of
Port Angeles, it rains less than half a meter a year. The peninsula actually has three
different climate zones.
As you approach the rain forest from the town of Forks, you see more and more dangling
mosses hanging down from innumerable trees. Mighty virgin sitka spruce, hundreds of years
old, rise up here to 90 meters, trunks straight as telephone poles. The Douglas firs here
are too big to be Christmas trees.
The closer you get to the Hoh Rain Forest, the more moss you see, and the more you wince
at the frequent bald patches of clear-cut land spoiling the forests. It's hard to look
away from the moss, though. It's beautiful.
Once inside Hoh, you are in a Disney's cartoon movie, especially if there's a wind. You
think of Snow White frightened by menacing tree limbs. You can easily imagine scary faces
on gnarled trunks.
You drive through archways of trees covered by Methuselah's beard which hangs down six
meters like over-fertilized horses' manes. Near the Interpretative Center is the Hall of
Mosses, a vast cathedral of trees with moss on almost everything. You can hike through its
one-kilometer loop trail. Here are thick carpets of nature's broadloom lying everywhere.
Here great fallen "nurse logs" give nourishment to new spruce trees. Feather
moss grows on rocks, its flowers ironed wide and flat. Occasionally you catch whiffs of
cedar and pine. If you're lucky too, you might meet herds of grazing Roosevelt elk.
About 145 Km northwest of Hoh is Neah Bay with its Makah Museum. This now houses 55,000
artifacts from the doomed village of Ozette, a few kilometers away as the bald eagle
flies, but a 90 minute drive. The museum is especially exciting because the culture of
Ozette village was never contaminated by European influences, and the mud did a good job
of conservation.
The actual site has now been reburied with little to see. Archaeologists from Washington
State University excavated for 11 summers from 1970. The museum has perfect baskets,
harpoons, cedar clothing, blankets of dog hair, and cooking pots--all at least 500 years
old. Here you can see how the Makah people split tall cedar logs with stone wedges and
stone hammers to make the walls of their long house dwellings. The planks are so even and
long they looked like they were cut in a sawmill.
The museum also houses eight-man sea-going dugout canoes. These natives hunted whale and
believe they have treaty rights to continue to do so today. Like the Inuit further north,
they used seal-skin floats to slow down and tire the speared mammals, many of which were
four times the size of their canoes. They were very brave people!
The archaeological site, discovered accidentally in the 1960s, "proved that the Makah
used fishing nets and looms before the advent of Europeans. The government subsequently
returned net-fishing rights to us," said Kay Parent who works at the museum and
speaks Makah.
She gives out printed directions to Point Flattery, the western-most point of the
contiguous United States. From the museum, you drive 10 km and then hike about 20 minutes,
up and down hills, on boardwalks, and along well-constructed trails. There you get a
stunning view of the Pacific Ocean, rocky crags, and caves large enough to hide pirate
ships.
For a change, it would be good to spend time in Port Townsend. This little town was named
by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 in honour of the English Marquis of Townsend who took
command after the death of General James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Port Townsend developed as an international seaport, reaching its peak in the 19th
century. Sea captains and rich merchants lived on the bluff above the harbour. Water
Street with its stores, was once for transients, sailors and prostitutes.
----------------------------------------------------------
Ruth Lor Malloy is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
Guidepost
It is easy to get to the Olympic Peninsula. There are direct car ferries taking 95 minutes
from Victoria, B.C. to Port Angeles. From Seattle and the Washington state mainland, you
can sail directly to Bremerton, Kingston, or Port Townsend. Horizon Air flies between Port
Angeles and Victoria, and Port Angeles and Seattle. But if you want to get your own
seafood or hike in the mountains, you do have to have a car or rent one.
You can get information about harvesting shellfish from http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/shelfish/beachreg/
. The Makah Museum's Web site is: www.makah.com
. Information on the Hoh Rain Forest and Hurricane Ridge are on: http://www.gorp.com/gorp/resource/us_national_park/wa/hik_oly3.htm
,
www.olympus.net/skiteam or www.hurricanridge.net.
. A helpful site for the Olympic Peninsula is: www.olympicpeninsula.com/index.htm .
The Olympic National Park Visitors' Center is at 600 East Park Avenue, Port Angeles,
98362, WA. Tel. 260/452-0300.
You can get ferry schedules at 1-800-84FERRY in Washington, or 604/381-1551 in Sidney,
B.C. or click on http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries . For Port Angeles, the Web site is: www.ci.port-angeles.wa.us. For Port
Townsend, it's www.ptguide.com.
TIME TRAVEL: Makah natives used sea-going dugout canoes like this one to hunt whales off the cost of Washington 500 years ago.
A hall of moss greets visitors to the Hoh Rainforest
It was renovated in the 1960s as a tourist town and is full of charming old Victorian mansions, many converted now into restaurants or Bed and Breakfasts.
Port Townsend is seriously quaint and full of New Age stores, used book stores, antique
and curio markets, and bake shops. It has a little museum. It has a functioning pulp mill
near town, which sends forth white steam into the air, obscuring a view of snow-covered
mountains. The place is otherwise a perfect weekend getaway from both Victoria and
Seattle.
The closer you get to the Hoh Rain Forest, the more moss you see, and the
more you wince at the frequent bald patches of clear-cut land spoiling the forests. It's
hard to look away from the moss, though. It's beautiful.
Once inside Hoh, you are in a Disney's cartoon movie, especially if there's a wind. You
think of Snow White frightened by menacing tree limbs. You can easily imagine scary faces
on gnarled trunks.
You drive through archways of trees covered by Methuselah's beard which hangs down six
meters like over-fertilized horses' manes. Near the Interpretative Center is the Hall of
Mosses, a vast cathedral of trees with moss on almost everything. You can hike through its
one-kilometer loop trail. Here are thick carpets of nature's broadloom lying everywhere.
Here great fallen "nurse logs" give nourishment to new spruce trees. Feather
moss grows on rocks, its flowers ironed wide and flat. Occasionally you catch whiffs of
cedar and pine. If you're lucky too, you might meet herds of grazing Roosevelt elk.
About 145 Km northwest of Hoh is Neah Bay with its Makah Museum. This now houses 55,000
artifacts from the doomed village of Ozette, a few kilometers away as the bald eagle
flies, but a 90 minute drive. The museum is especially exciting because the culture of
Ozette village was never contaminated by European influences, and the mud did a good job
of conservation.
The actual site has now been reburied with little to see. Archaeologists from Washington
State University excavated for 11 summers from 1970. The museum has perfect baskets,
harpoons, cedar clothing, blankets of dog hair, and cooking pots--all at least 500 years
old. Here you can see how the Makah people split tall cedar logs with stone wedges and
stone hammers to make the walls of their long house dwellings. The planks are so even and
long they looked like they were cut in a sawmill.
The museum also houses eight-man sea-going dugout canoes. These natives hunted whale and
believe they have treaty rights to continue to do so today. Like the Inuit further north,
they used seal-skin floats to slow down and tire the speared mammals, many of which were
four times the size of their canoes. They were very brave people!
The archaeological site, discovered accidentally in the 1960s, "proved that the Makah
used fishing nets and looms before the advent of Europeans. The government subsequently
returned net-fishing rights to us," said Kay Parent who works at the museum and
speaks Makah.
She gives out printed directions to Point Flattery, the western-most point of the
contiguous United States. From the museum, you drive 10 km and then hike about 20 minutes,
up and down hills, on boardwalks, and along well-constructed trails. There you get a
stunning view of the Pacific Ocean, rocky crags, and caves large enough to hide pirate
ships.
For a change, it would be good to spend time in Port Townsend. This little town was named
by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 in honour of the English Marquis of Townsend who took
command after the death of General James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
Port Townsend developed as an international seaport, reaching its peak in the 19th
century. Sea captains and rich merchants lived on the bluff above the harbour. Water
Street with its stores, was once for transients, sailors and prostitutes.
It was renovated in the 1960s as a tourist town and is full of charming old Victorian
mansions, many converted now into restaurants or Bed and Breakfasts.
Port Townsend is seriously quaint and full of New Age stores, used book stores, antique
and curio markets, and bake shops. It has a little museum. It has a functioning pulp mill
near town, which sends forth white steam into the air, obscuring a view of snow-covered
mountains. The place is otherwise a perfect weekend getaway from both Victoria and
Seattle.
----------------------------------------------------------
Ruth Lor Malloy is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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