Virginia V and the Mosquito Fleet

Virginia V and the Mosquito Fleet

Before there were roads around the Puget Sound region, there were rivers. Before the stagecoaches, there were Salish canoes. And before the planes, the trains, and the automobiles…there was the water, and the ships that traveled upon it. In the earliest days of human habitation in what is now Washington State, the fastest way to get from place to place around the Salish Sea was by paddling a canoe, whether

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The Whitman Massacre

The Whitman Massacre

Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were Christian missionaries who left their homes in upstate New York and traveled with another missionary couple, Henry and Eliza Spalding, to what was then called Oregon Country in 1836. Their mission? To “Christianize” Indians. In fact, Oregon wasn’t even a territory yet. The United States government didn’t have any programs in Oregon Country, which at the time consisted of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon,

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Finding the Ship That Flew

Finding the Ship That Flew

There are dozens of things to see and do on the Lewis and Clark Trail Highway in southwest Washington (see here and here for just a few examples), but surely one of the most unique lies just outside a tiny berg called Knappton on the bank of the Columbia River. If you head west from Knappton Cove you might spot a rusty barge parked in a shallow bay called Hungry Harbor. There is

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The Ellis Island of the Columbia

The Ellis Island of the Columbia

We’ve all seen those grainy, black and white films of immigrants packed shoulder to shoulder on steamships pouring into America in the early 1900s. You can see them pass the Statue of Liberty and watch as they file out of the ships and into the long lines awaiting them before they are permitted entry into the United States. But we often overlook the fact that scenes like this were taking

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Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park

Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park

Any Washingtonian worth their basalt has – at one time or another – driven through Vantage during the long drive from Seattle to Spokane. Most of us breeze across the bridge and don’t look back as we climb the hills on the opposite side, dodging crawling semis and hoping our radiators don’t overheat. But if you’re more interested in your journey than your destination, you may have taken the time to

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