Patty and I came to Kopachuck by car, not water, but we brought our kayaks.
Kopachuck State Park owes its name to the unique trade language that developed in the Pacific Northwest in the 1800's. The homeland of the Chinook people encompasses the estuarine reach of the lower Columbia River, the initial marine entry point into this region for seafaring Europeans. As the dance of cultures unfolded, the Chinook were uniquely positioned to influence the engagement. As trade developed, the language of trade was melded from a polyglot of the languages of those involved, weighted heavily toward the Chinook language. 100 years later, as the Parks and Recreation Commission dedicated this new park featuring a delightful access to the saltwater shore, they borrowed from the Chinook jargon to christen it Kopa (by) Chuck (water).
For all of the time that people have lived by the Salish Sea, we have traveled the region by water. Most of the time that travel has been by paddling through the many moods of these waterways in craft hewn from the western red cedar trees found by its shores. Canoe designs are tailored to specific uses: river or ocean, freight canoes carrying up to 5 tons, family transportation, racing, salmon fishing, seal hunting, halibut fishing, whaling, and giant canoes for long-distance war and raiding parties or contemporary canoe journeys such as the July 2019 Paddle to Lummi.
Larger canoes are works of art created by specialists with a lifelong connection to cedar through a guardian spirit song, often the pileated woodpecker. A carver searching for a canoe tree might listen for the chop-chop sound of this supernatural assistant for guidance, while looking for a specimen lacking limbs on one side for fewer knots. The selected 300-800 year old tree would be felled by a combination of chiseling and controlled burning (or more likely a chainsaw nowadays). Once on the ground, the top, branches, bark and sapwood would be removed, and the tree split in an east-west direction to ensure a balanced canoe (the tree's wood is lighter on its south side). With the blanks cut to a V-shape at each end and adzed to a point, the inside wood is split out with an adze. The roughed-out canoe may be left to cure for up to a year. When carving recommences, perhaps after winter has passed, the hollowing of the canoe would continue. To maintain an even thickness of about two finger's width, measured yellow cedar pegs would be inserted in drilled holes, and used to guide more intricate carving with a small adze and curved knife. Finally, the canoe is filled with water and steamed by placing hot rocks from the hearth inside to boil it. The frame is stretched to the desired width and held in place with thwarts. Three carvers could take two months to complete a 25-foot canoe, often remaining celibate for the duration (so the timber would not rot) and not combing their hair during the entire time (to avoid wood splitting at the ends of the canoe). Put into service after naming and blessing ceremonies, the canoe would be used for 10-30 years.
The canoe represents native life at its fullest. It was used for fishing in the quiet waters and also for sea-going expeditions in quest of otter, seals and whales. The Native canoe was an economic necessity like a railroad or highway and it also provided recreation which persists to the present day in the sport of racing. For a maritime people it was an opportunity to display one's prowess. When we revel at competitive canoeing, remember it was this same spirit that was a way of life to the prime founders of this land. ---Emmett Oliver, Quinault Elder (1913-2016)
Arriving at Kopachuck's parking area on the 4th of July 2019, I unloaded the kayak and wheeled and lugged gear 300 yards down the sloping access path past the Cascadia Marine Trail campsite to launch into the placid waters of Carr Inlet and head towards Cutts Island, a Marine State Park.
European-American colonists arriving in Washington in the 1800's relied on hired tribal canoe transportation to access their homes and businesses, and many remarked on their quality and efficiency, but the traditional began to be supplanted by new technology, starting with the arrival of the Hudsons Bay Company steamship Beaver in 1836.
From the water, I could easily pick out the tall old trees of Penrose Point and the embayment of VanGeldern Cove, home to...well...a village called Home that began as an anarchist settlement that dissolved in a disagreement about nudity. Slightly northwest, Glen Cove is home to Nadeau's Olde Glencove Hotel, a B&B that hearkens back to its turn of the 20th century roots, and just beyond Raft Island with its million-dollar mansions to the north is the entrance to the harbor of Rosedale. What ties all of these places together is the fact that all of them are listed on old steamboat schedules of the Arcadia, one of the last of the flotilla that comprised the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet.
The Beaver was joined by the sidewheeler Fairy in 1853, initiating the first formal schedule--twice a week between Olympia and Steilacoom and once a week from Olympia to Seattle. Still, unpredictable weather delays meant that native canoe transport was often more reliable. Regular daily service between Tacoma and Seattle did not start until 1890, as railroads stimulated population growth and a greater demand for passenger, freight and mail services over more than 40 different routes. Captains navigated the maze of waterways in fog and rain by listening for echo returns from the ship's whistle-- an echo heard one second after the blast indicated a distance of 500 feet from shore. In the largely unregulated era of the mosquito fleet, collisions (sometimes as captains engaged in highly competitive races), boiler explosions, and drownings were all too frequent. Mosquito fleet sailings peaked in the early 1900s and then, as they had replaced cedar canoes, were replaced in turn by automobiles. The number of cars on Washington's roads increased by 40-50% every year from 1900 until 1918, then the rate of increase trended downward to the rate of a fraction of a percent per year today. The mosquito fleet declined; in 1951 the state purchased all of the remaining ships, converting them to auto ferries intended to run only until the crossing routes were bridged. Nearly 70 years later, Washington State Ferries' 22 vessels carry nearly 25 million passengers a year, the largest ferry operating system in the United States.
The predominant transportation fits its time and place and can change quickly as needs and available technology change. Just as we now look back with a mixture of nostalgia and distaste on the transportation options of past eras, Washingtonians a couple of decades hence will shake their heads in dismay at the thought of 3 million registered internal-combustion-powered, greenhouse-gas-spewing automobiles choking the freeways of today. It is no longer hard to imagine a network of self-driving electric cars, mostly owned by shared-ride providers or co-ops, carrying people from their homes to fast, efficient, light rail systems that whisk them to multi-modal transit nodes offering connections to passenger boats with service to....Rosedale, Glen Cove, Home, Penrose Point and Kopachuck State Park.
But of course, paddling through these waters never really disappeared. As I moved northward, I shared the water with other kayakers and paddle boarders. Kopachuck State Park features one of the 66 places on the Cascadia Marine Trail reserved for campers arriving in human-powered beachable watercraft, stretching almost 200 miles (with many choices of twists and turns) from Hope Island near Olympia to Point Roberts at the Canadian Border.
Paddling the waters of the Salish Sea feels natural and timeless--a connection to place that binds us to our home and to the lives and stories of the more than 400 generations of people that have lived and loved and visited this beautiful crease in the Earth's crust.
--David
Quinault canoe carver photo courtesy Simon Fraser University