1912 ❖ BEEF HARBOR FISH TRAP

Beef Harbor Fish Trap
47°53'13" N 122°36'37" W
Verso is inscribed as being owned
by a Bellingham Cannery.
Hood's Canal across from
Whiskey Spit Trap, 1912.
Click to enlarge.
Original photo from the archives of
Saltwater People Historical Society©

According to Richard W. Blumenthal in Washington Place Names; Inland Washington Waters there are two very small harbors located in Hood Canal north of Seabeck Bay. On older charts the one to the northeast was labeled Beef Harbor. On newer charts, this was renamed Big Beef Harbor. Its companion to the southwest is labeled Little Beef Harbor. The Beef Harbor name may have been connected with an early slaughterhouse set up to supplying logging camps in the area.
      Open waters to the north of the spit are among the deepest in Puget Sound. Local magnetic disturbances of more than 2° from normal variation have been observed in Hood Canal at Whiskey Spit, now known as Point Hannon.
      Port Gamble S'Klallum and Lower Elwha S'Klallum members tell of tribal gatherings, ancestral canoe burials, trapping, fishing pre-European contact. 
      In 2002, the property was conveyed to the Washington State Park system. The delicate freshwater marsh on the point provides the unique habitat required for the unusually wide range of nesting birds, migrating waterfowl, reptiles, amphibians, and essential food for plentiful sand lance and surf smelt.