Cape Disappointment, Fort Canby

September, 2020

Besides the Cape Disappointment area being super wonderful for its rain forest and its boggy wetlands, and birds and salmon and whales and other wildlife, and the marina at Ilwaco with its fantastic fishing boats, and the home of the only US Coast Guard training center in the USA, and the home of a super campground, and for its amazing beach, not to mention the Pacific Ocean itself … besides all of that, it’s also the home of Fort Canby, a military installation built in 1863 to protect the mouth of the Columbia River from ingress by Confederate troops during the US Civil War (the State of Washington didn’t even exist yet, it was still part of the Oregon Territory back then). The Fort was updated for WWI and again for WWII. It was known to be the most advanced emplacement with the most advanced technology in the USA for many years. It was deactivated in 1947, after WWII. Use these two links, Fort Canby and Fort Canby to read more information.

Here’s the map again, with more colored arrows and circles and such. Let me explain …

The large OUTLINED YELLOW arrow at the very bottom of the photo above points to Cape Disappointment, the narrow dark green curved isthmus of land. Lots of folks call the entire huge area around the town of Ilwaco “Cape Disappointment”, but actually the Cape is not a very large chunk of land. The two islands (above the Cape and to the right) grew out of sand and mud deposits after the jetty was built that juts out to the south from the right side of the Cape. In addition, when the jetty was built that juts out to the southwest, out into the Pacific Ocean, more sand and mud collected and formed more land. In fact, originally, all of the light green and tan land, where the campground is, was completely under water, part of the Pacific Ocean, until those two jettys were built.

In the upper left corner of the photo above, the YELLOW star is the North Head Lighthouse, that we visited just the other day. Just below that, the RED star is the campground. The RED ARROW just north of Cape Disappoinment is where the US Coast Guard station is. The SOLID YELLOW ARROW points to the Cape Disapointment Lighthouse … we’ll see a bit of that today. And the WHITE/PINK circle just above that is the location of the largest “battery” of Fort Canby, where munitions were stored, where gun emplacements were installed, and where offices were located.

But first, before we get to the military fort … the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse calls.

My friends and I walked past the Fort Canby battery/gun implacement, prior to visiting it. We were drawn by the view from the cliff that faces the Pacific Ocean. We walked along a safely fenced overlook right on the top of the Cape, and right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Looking to the left we discovered our first view of the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and of the Pacific Ocean with no jettys and no obstructions, nothing between us and the largest ocean on earth.

  

As evidence of the need for this very first lighthouse in the Pacific Northwest, the ship that was bringing construction materials for this very lighthouse sank just two miles offshore. Most of the construction materials were lost in the ocean. Eventually, this first lighthouse in the Pacific Northwest was built. It was first lit in 1856. The original Fresnel light burned five gallons of kerosene each night using 18 wicks. The lighthouse was electrified in 1937. The light was automated in 1973. More information can be found here and here.

Next, standing in the same spot on that fenced walkway, we then turned to the right … to the view below. This is the jetty that juts out from Cape Disappointment towards the southwest, into the Pacific Ocean. This jetty is about 1.7 miles long. In 1915 when it was built, it was about 2.5 miles long. Almost one full mile of the outer end of the jetty has been washed away by the ocean. This jetty is no tiny pile of rocks; even way out at the end of the jetty where the ocean has been bashing against it for more than 100 years, the jetty is approximately 100 feet across and about 25 feet high according to a 2012 report by the US Army Corp of Engineers.

In the photo below, check out the wave that was approaching the outer end of the jetty as I was standing there watching it on this a lovely, calm, late summer day. That wave on this lovely calm day was at least 20 feet tall. It’s certainly not any kind of wave that I would like to be anywhere near in any of the boats I’ve owned!

Now let’s check out the big rock that’s at the bottom of the cliff, two photos above. Cormorants! A few dozen of them.

And on the cliff face itself, not too far from where I was standing, were dozens more of them.

We walked around out on that walkway, on the top of the cliff, for a good while, then we headed back to the area that’s immediately behind the top of the cliff … to the Battery Harvey Allen, part of Fort Canby.

All underground, there are offices and equipment storage, rooms that housed radio equipment and other electronics of whatever era, and of course huge rooms for ammunition shells and powder for the big guns that were installed here, guns #1 and #2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo below is of one of the gun implacements. Today, instead of a large, very deep hole in the middle, there was dirt and a very healthy bunch of ferns. It is the rainforest here after all. You can see the “steps” that circle the emplacement, such that the wheels under the gun allowed the gun to be rotated to face the direction desired.

Here’s the other gun emplacement below … no dirt or ferns in the center hole where I imagine an exceptionally heavy portion of the gun lived and rotated, possibly helping to hold the gun in place when it was fired. Notice the iron rings in the wall. There were four or five of them for each gun, spaced well apart. I suppose each gun was anchored to these rings, but I don’t really know. Do any of you readers know?

 

The photo below shows just one of the rooms that had artillery shells in it. We were assured that these shells had been disarmed. The rooms where powder had been stored in the past were completely empty. Note the wheeled carts that were used to move the shells. Signs said these were original carts from the earliest days of this battery.

 

This was an interesting day in many ways. From the tremendous thrill of seeing the ocean and all of its life and power, including those Cormorants … to the fascination with Fort Canby and Battery Harvey Allen and the history there. I could wax and wane both positive and negative, but I won’t. I’m just going to enjoy the day that my friends and I had.

Two of the very positive things that Fort Canby and the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse do for us today is that they house a radar station and a radio station, both of which monitor boats and ships to aid the US Coast Guard.

One more beach walk coming up this afternoon, and then we all head back home tomorrow morning. It will be hard to leave this extraordinary corner of Washington State!