Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and Dead Man's Cove
2012.09.30
I drove on further, and arrived at a parking lot for the trails leading either to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse or the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. It was about 3:00 pm, and I knew I couldn’t see everything in the park and still get to Fort Columbia; so I didn’t visit the interpretive center. The trail to this lighthouse doesn’t look much longer than the one to North Head on the map, but it winds up and down and around through the trees.
Before there was a lighthouse, Hudson’s Bay Company employees raised a white flag on the cape. The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse was proposed in 1848, and funds appropriated in 1852. On September 18, 1853, the Oriole was making the first delivery of materials when she ran aground and broke up on the shoals below the cape. The crew survived but the cargo was a total loss. The lighthouse was finally finished in 1856, the first in the Pacific Northwest. After the North Head Lighthouse was built in 1898, the first-order Fresnel lens was moved there and replaced with a fourth-order lens. It was automated in 1971.
Dead Man's Cove
The trail curves around the back end of Dead Man’s Cove, a small hollow. It looks and sounds like the perfect place for buried treasure, but the real story is more sad than swashbuckling. In 1853 a three-masted ship called the Vandalia (not to be confused with the sloop-of-war USS Vandalia) wrecked on the Columbia Bar; all hands were lost. Captain E.N. Beard’s body washed up at what would be called Beard’s Hollow, and others were found in Dead Man’s Cove.
Fort Canby
Beginning in 1862, a garrison was posted here during the American Civil War as the Post at Cape Disappointment, then Fort Cape Disappointment. Three earthwork batteries with smooth-bore cannon were constructed, including one at the lighthouse.
In 1875, the fort was renamed Fort Canby, after General Edward Canby, who died in the Modoc Indian War. In the early 1900’s, new concrete batteries with disappearing guns were added, including Battery Harvey Allen which is next to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.
The fort was nearly deserted between the World Wars. Then Battery 247 was added in 1944, the same time Battery 245 was built at Fort Stevens. Fort Canby was deactivated in 1947.
Waikiki Beach
On my way through the park, I made a wrong turn at one point, and stopped in a parking lot to check the map. I noticed there was a little place selling wood-fired pizza. I decided to stop in for a late afternoon meal I usually call “lupper”.
The parking lot is next to a road that leads down to a place called Waikiki Beach. I first thought it was a bit of dry humor, but after the Dead Man’s Cove story, you shouldn’t expect a happy story.
In 1811, the Tonquin had finally arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River, bringing the men who would establish Fort Astor for the Pacific Fur Company. They had stopped in the Sandwich Islands along the way, and added about twenty Hawaiian men to the crew. Now finally near their destination, they had to find a way through the treacherous Columbia Bar. A small boat was sent out, but disappeared with five men lost. The next day, another boat set out with five men, including two Hawaiians dubbed “Peter” and “Harry”. They were swamped by a large breaker wave. Two men drowned, but Peter, Harry, and a third man managed to recover the boat and climb back in. They spent the night in the small boat. At first light, they steered towards the coast, at last landing on a beach. Peter died of hypothermia during the night, and Harry barely survived. The Hawaiians buried Peter on the beach and performed a ceremony.
North Head Lighthouse