The SS Bering, a Reindeer Ship in Ballard

The SS Bering was a ship that was parked on the beach at Point Shilshole, now the home of the Ballard Elks Lodge. The Bering was built originally as the Annette Rolph at Fairhaven, California in 1918. The ship later spent time as a tramp steamship, reindeer ship, refrigerator ship and supply ship to Alaska during WW2.

In 1964, she was burned by the local fire department to make way for new development. Soon thereafter, the Ballard Elks Lodge was built on the site.

  

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Now view from the Ballard Elks webcam.

In 1943, she ran aground on Cape Spencer. Her crew re-floated her. Seattle based Tregonning Boat Company bought her for $1 and proceeded to beach her at their facility on Point Shilshole where she sat for the next two decades.  

A piece of the hull can still be seen at extreme low tides (-3 ish).  I launch my kayaks and SUPs from that location nearly daily and still see pieces of the ship on the beach. About a decade ago, a guy was removing larger pieces from the ship to clean the beach. The pieces generally look like burnt looking wood planks covered in barnacles. 

Read more about the SS Bering in this great HistoryLink article.   See my article on the Ballard Elks Lodge history.

The location of the Ballard Elks is 6411 Seaview Ave NW, Seattle. 

By Rob Casey / Ballard

Johnson Creek Auto Camp / Pitship Point (part 2)

Our previous post on Pitship Point introduced you to some history of John Wayne Marina and included a historical picture of a long dump near Johnson Creek, likely dating back to the turn of the 20^th century. We skip ahead a decade or two with a picture taken only a hundred yards or so east of that previous shot. 

Then - Johnson Creek Auto Camp (unknown date) / Now - John Wayne's Waterfront Resort (2020)

This image comes to us from the Museum and Arts Center in Sequim-Dungeness, featuring what was known then as Johnson Creek Auto Camp. Again undated, but with cars that I believe date to the 1920’s, this photo shows the early cabins of a campground that later would be called Silver Sands Resort and is now part of John Wayne’s Waterfront Resort on the western shore of Sequim Bay. The shoreline and primary use of this property hasn't changed much in nearly 100 years. The one exception, Whitefeather Way now separates the larger building on the left from the cabins on the right.  

Newspaper ad from May 1957

I presume the cabins in our Then picture were built in 1910, but I don’t believe any remain (although the county assessor lists 1910 as the “built date” of the current cabins). According to a 2017 Peninsula Daily News “Back When” column, which features a postcard picture of Silver Sands Resort in the 1960s, locals recall the old cabins were replaced by the current structures after World War II. Ads for Silver Sands Resort in the Port Angeles Evening News start mentioning “new cabins”

around 1960. Adjacent to Silver Sands was Hague’s Resort with apartments, camping, boat ramp and saltwater swimming lagoon. Both resorts were sold in the late 1960s to Sequim Bay Marina, Inc. (actor John Wayne), later becoming the RV park, camping and cabins you can visit today. Unfortunately, information or advertisements from the Johnson Creek Auto Camp era have been hard to track down.

Same tree?

For me, the fun of Now and Then photos is spotting landmarks, buildings or items that survived the intervening years and appear in both photos. After turning the brightness up all the way on our old photo, I spotted something that I believe has remained, although now only in part. A unique tree with multiple trunks can be seen in the old photo in nearly the same spot we currently find an enormous stump, just outside the second cabin from the left.

Lucky for us, Silver Sands Resort sold numerous postcard photos of their cabins in the 1960s and we can see the tree in all its glory. I can't be absolutely certain it is the same tree we see in the Johnson Creek Auto Camp photo, but the position and uniqueness of the tree itself make me feel confident that it is the same one.

Postcards from Silver Sands Resort in the 1960s

If you have any additional information about this location before it was Silver Sands Resort, please let us know.

Fort Hayden, now Salt Creek County Park

Salt Creek County Park in Clallam County is an absolute gem - a beautiful and heavily-used park where a lush second growth forest merges with a spectacular coast.  It also, like some of our other park gems scattered around the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca (i.e. Fort Worden, Fort Ebey, Fort Casey and Fort Flagler), was once part of the Puget Sound Harbor Defense System, the initial three fort core of which is described here.  What was known at the time as Fort Hayden was a relatively late addition to the system, constructed at the onset of WWII, and decommissioned at the end of the war.  Walking around the grounds now speaks to the changes and transformations of uses of the coast that this blog is all about.

One of two 16-inch guns firing at Camp Hayden, probably in the early 1940's.  Photo from the Burt Kellogg collection, hosted by the North Olympic Library System.

The same perspective, photo collected 27 May 2020.  

The Transformation of Urban Shorelines: Port Angeles

Most shorelines of urban coastal communities in Washington have been radically transformed by fill, and Port Angeles is no different.  Downtown Port Angeles was originally built essentially right on the beach:

View looking west from the bluffs just to the east of downtown Port Angeles.  Unknown date, but presumably prior to 1914.  Photo from the Burt Kellogg Collection, available through the North Olympic Library System. 

The contemporary view highlights the changes to the shoreline, most of which were brought about by a massive 1914 filling project:

Contemporary view of downtown Port Angeles, looking west from the bluff just to the east of downtown.  The Red Lion hotel is prominent in the foreground, and Ediz Hook is visible in far field.  Photo collected 4 March 2014 by Ian Miller. 

John Wayne Marina / Pitship Point in Sequim Bay

This is part one of two historical photos I’ll be sharing, taken near what is now John Wayne Marina in Sequim Bay. This area can be referred to by several names. The sandspit where the marina was eventually built was named Pitship Point by the Charles Wilkes Expedition in 1841. The marsh on the left is called Pitship Pocket Estuary and underwent a much-needed restoration in 2010 by the North Olympic Salmon Coalition. The project replaced a small culvert with a bridge that reconnected the marsh to the bay, improving habitat for out-migrating salmon as they make their way to the ocean.

The historical photos I’ve found of this area refer to nearby Johnson Creek, which runs adjacent to the marina. The photo below is another from the Bert Kellogg collection at the North Olympic Library System and is titled “Log Dump on Johnson Creek.” The date is unknown, but cabins were built in 1910 (the focus of our upcoming part two) that would have been seen here if the photo had been taken after that time period.

Then - Johnson Creek Log Dump (date unknown - via Bert Kellogg Collection at North Olympic Library System) / Now - Pitship Pocket Estuary and John Wayne Marina (2019)

This was one of several locations on Sequim Bay used to collect and sort logs before they were rafted and towed to a local mill.  But as with all history here, the story begins with the S’Klallam tribe. Carbon dating of artifacts found at Pitship Point date back at least 2000 years.

Newspaper ad March 1970

In the 20^th century and continuing through today, Pitship Point has been used for recreation, with a boat ramp and cabins and camping available just across the road. In the early 1970s, Sequim Bay Marina, Inc. (actor John Wayne) developed Pitship Point, attempting to turn it into a marina. In 1975, Wayne gifted the land to the county so that the current marina could be built. The marina was completed in 1985 and the Wayne family still owns adjacent property, including John Wayne’s Waterfront Resort. Washington’s Department of Ecology Shoreline Photo website shows an aerial view of what Pitship Point looked like in 1977, before work started on the current marina.

The bluff as a landmark on the opposite side of Sequim Bay

I kept the Now picture a little wider so you could see more of the marsh and all of the marina. The marsh to the left is an easy landmark but what caught my eye in the historical photo is the bluff on the far right. The bluff is located on the opposite side of the bay. The marina and trees get in the way of us seeing it in the modern photo above, so I took a second picture from the marina. On the far left is Paradise Cove, and the arrows point to what I believe is the same slide area on the bluff in both photos. If it weren’t for all the vegetation, the arc of the bluff would be a little easier to discern, but you can still make it out.

Look for a part two from this same area in another blog post coming soon.

Puget Sound Clam Gardens

Last year during a SUP touring clinic I hosted with R2AK paddler Karl Kruger on Orcas Island, Karl sparked my interest in finding evidence of indigenous Salish culture along Puget Sound.  

With 150 plus years of logging and development, I didn't think that was possible but Karl quickly pointed out a few signs just down the street from his Deer Harbor marina.  

He described the purpose of marker trees, which are trees shaped by native people to show territory, direction or point to a forage or fishing spot.  Once I saw what a marker tree looked like, I realized I've seen them around the Sound.  

Hooked on finding marker trees,  my research led me to other signs of indigenous culture including clam beds. Clam beds were designed to create, just that, a clam foraging spot along a beach or part of a beach not otherwise know for clamming. 

The beds design included building a rock wall or line or rocks which would collect sand inside thus creating the bed.  

Here's a few examples and links to check out.. 

BC Clam Garden

The Clam Garden Network

NW Coast Archaeology - Clam Gardens

Modern or recreated clam gardens:

Swinomish Clam Garden

NPR Story on Modern Clam Gardens

Posted by Rob Casey

Something a bit different...restoration on the shoreline

The fundamental idea behind this blog was to provide modern perspectives of Washington's historic shorelines, and highlight the transformations that Washington's shorelines have gone through over the last 100 to 150 years.  I've decided to do something a bit different with this post though, and focus it on radical change to Washington's shoreline associated with a restoration.  I've been incredibly fortunate to be part of the community of scientists focused on studying the effects associated with the removal of the Elwha River dams.  In particular I've been interested in the coastal influences, both physical and ecological.  Through that work, I've revisited spots on the Elwha River delta repeatedly for well over a decade, including this spot right here. Back in 2011, the view from this spot looked like this:

Photo taken looking up the beach during low tide, on 2 August 2011.  Photo originally published at https://coastnerd.blogspot.com/2018/06/elwha-update.html 

Just a handful of years later, after dam removal transformed the coastal landscape near the river mouth, the view from that exact spot is radically different:

June 2018 photo looking south from what used to be the beach.  Photo originally published at https://coastnerd.blogspot.com/2018/06/elwha-update.html