OddWA #32 - The Atomic Man

On August 30, 1976 a workplace accident at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant exposed plant worker Harold McCluskey to what should have been a lethal dose of radioactive material. His radiation level was so high McCluskey set off Geiger counters fifty feet away, earning him the nickname "The Atomic Man." Miraculously, he was treated and survived for years, though his life had new challenges. Some of Harold’s friends and fellow church members were uneasy around him and avoided him, some going so far as to request he not visit their homes. McCluskey eventually died of heart disease in 1987.

CK

OddWA #31 - Slew Foot

 (Click to enlarge)

 

Washington has always been a hotbed of Bigfoot sightings. Records and databases list hundreds of Bigfoot sightings in the Evergreen State over the years, so it’s tricky choosing something suitably epic. In my mind, the clear winner is the famed sightings in Bossburg, Washington from 1969 and 1970.

Starting on November 24th, residents found a multitude of tracks crisscrossing the countryside near the Columbia River. One foot appeared to be deformed, so it was dubbed Slew Foot.  The tracks caused a sensation that attracted experts and enthusiasts from near and far, including Roger Patterson – famed cameraman of the Patterson Film that kicked off the modern Bigfoot phenomenon. Patterson, a pair of zoologists, a local tracker, a Himalayan explorer, a wealthy financier and others became embroiled in a story filled with action, intrigue and hanging slabs of meat meant to entice the mystery hominid. It didn’t work. The fruit basket didn’t work either.

The visitors bid against each other – literally – to learn the location of multiple Bigfoot - including a Bigfoot who was captive, a dead Bigfoot carcass in a cave and a Bigfoot someone claimed they had at home in their freezer. Lines were drawn and competing camps tracked each other, sometimes from the air in a helicopter. Trucks and snowmobiles were rented so the hunters could keep tabs on each other. Every team suspected the others knew something they didn’t.

It ends, predictably, with no Bigfoot, several bank accounts greatly reduced and some very unconvincing, grainy home movie. Appropriately, that footage was presented to a skeptical TV audience in 1972 on the show You Asked For It. I’m sure the trappers and guides who made a fortune back in Bossburg couldn’t agree more.

 CK

OddWA #30 - The Singing Barber

Sometimes a couple stories merge and the result just sticks. One classic chestnut from Seattle's Pike Place Market involves a woman who would sing customers to sleep in her barber shop, then lighten their wallets. She met her demise after falling through the floor of her shop. Over the years, market shopkeepers and patrons claimed to hear her ghostly singing. A little digging turns up a "true" story of a woman who did fall through the floor at Pike Place, though she wasn't a barber and she didn't rob her customers. That seems to stem from a different story. But the tale of the Phantom Singing Barber has taken on a life of its own. The tale is a firm fixture with "ghost tours" of Seattle.

CK

OddWA #29 – The Soap Lake Sighting

Two cars making their way from Grand Coulee to Soap Lake both stalled and stopped in their tracks on December 7^th, 1957. Eight witnesses described watching a large, fiery UFO fly over the vicinity. Strangely, the dome lights reportedly came on in both cars as the craft flew overhead. 

Sounds like some hot-rodding alien teenagers could use a good talking to, by golly.

CK

OddWA #28 - Grave Robber Rescue

When times get tough, people improvise and sometimes work outside the boundaries of the law. Bootlegging was a common way to make a few extra bucks during the Great Depression, but other crimes also saw an increase as well. A strange example of one crime meeting another happened in December of 1932 when two Seattle grave robbers digging into a fresh grave unearthed a woman who had been buried alive by her underworld associates. She was apparently fine, if somewhat disoriented. Neither party was eager to take the matter to the police.

CK

OddWA #27 - Everett's Phantom Trolley

A compilation of local spooky stories from the early 1950’s tells of a motorist who dodged an oncoming car with one headlight during a snow storm late one night in downtown Everett. As it passed, the driver realized it was actually a trolley. No trolleys had operated in the city for decades. It’s nice to know there might be decent mass transit in the afterlife.

CK

OddWA #26 - The Wild Man of The Wynoochie

The recent sentencing of Colton Harris Moore, a.k.a. The Barefoot Bandit reminded me of something. Whether he knows it or not, the Barefoot Bandit is part of a tradition in Washington State. Our history is full of outlaws who go a bit feral living outside the boundaries of civilization. The forests of Washington seem to attract all manner of troubled souls. Some who grew up on or near the Olympic Peninsula might remember stories of “trip-wire vets” after the Vietnam War. Even hiking the backwoods of Kitsap County, I would sometimes stumble across a crude lean-to, tent or shelter on occasion. If one left the occupants alone everything would be fine.

That was the case with the most infamous “Wild Man,” John Turnow, a.k.a. the Wild Man of The Wynoochie. At some point, the huge man stopped participating in civilized life and started to haunt the woods of Grays Harbor County. He sometimes watched logging operations from the edge of the woods but seemed harmless enough.

Then, everything went seriously wrong. A confrontation with twin nephews in 1911 ended with both young men dead and Turnow a hunted man. For two years Turnow proved his reputation as a woodsman and sharpshooter. Every attempt to find him turned up nothing. His habit of breaking into cabins and businesses yielded $15,000 in loot when he happened upon a general store that also served as the town bank. The resulting reward increased the number of men searching for Turnow. Some who searched for him never returned. Most just came back empty-handed. Some overzealous hunters shot a cow. Another posse killed a 17 year-old boy by mistake.

By this point, John Turnow was regarded as an almost supernatural bogeyman, earning nicknames like “the Mad Daniel Boone” and “the Cougar Man.” “The Wild Man of The Wynoochie” is the name that stuck.

Turnow was finally cornered at the camp near his makeshift shelter in 1913. He shot two of the three men who confronted him. The third, Deputy Giles Quimby, convinced Turnow to reveal where he had hidden his loot in exchange for his freedom. Once Turnow told him, Quimby opened fire in the direction of Turnow’s hiding place and crawled away to get reinforcements. Quimby returned the next day but found that Turnow had died after the gunfight the previous day. His body was brought to Montesano, where hundreds of citizens lined up to gawk at the Wild Man, sometimes taking souvenirs off his corpse.

One thing nobody ever found was the $15,000 in gold and silver coins.

CK

ps: Some more background on John Turnow.

OddWA #25 - An Electric Fish Story

If you think journalistic standards have suffered lately, check out this story from the Tacoma Daily Ledger from 1893. It's a sparkling example of the sort of penetrating, detailed accounts you just don't see these days.

On July 3rd, the newspaper featured a story about a group of local residents and two "eastern gentlemen" who had a hair raising encounter on a ...fishing and hunting trip on Puget Sound. The group was fishing near Point Defiance on the evening of July 2nd when a shift in the wind prompted them to set a course for "Black Fish Bay, Henderson Island," for a "fine trout stream running into the bay and also an excellent camping place near the fishing ground." Their sloop reached that destination in and hour and a half. The group set up camp near some surveyors from Olympia who were working in the vicinity.

Around midnight both groups were awakened by a "horrible noise" and a feeling that the air was filled with "a strong current of electricity that caused every nerve in the body to sting with pain." The source of this disturbance was a terrifying, large creature in the bay described as 150 feet long with six eyes, a walrus-shaped head and glowing copper colored bands along its length. And a propeller.

When one of the surveyors moved closer to the shore, the monster directed a stream of water resembling "blue fire" at the man, who fell to the ground "as though dead." When one of the Tacoma gentlemen tried to help the fallen surveyor, he too was knocked to the ground by this substance that originated from "two large horn-like substances." Their compatriots retreated into the woods for safety as the electrical beast continued to make horrifying sounds and bright flashes of light. After the creature departed, the men found their fallen friends on the beach, "alive but unconscious." The group called off the rest of their expedition and returned to Tacoma that morning to tell their story. One of the nameless eastern gentlemen said, "I am going to send a full account of our encounter to the Smithsonian Institute, and I doubt not but what they will send out some scientific chaps to investigate."

As far as I know, the scientific chaps never followed up on this one.

It's a funny reflection on our complex local waterways that nobody has ever pointed out that there is no such thing as "Henderson Island" on Puget Sound, much less a Black Fish Bay. There are so many islands and bays that even life-long residents would probably go along with the geography of this story. But let's be charitable. Assuming the eastern visitors mixed things up a bit, let's go with Henderson Bay near Gig Harbor -- about the only plausible place they might have reached by sail within 1.5 hours. "Black Fish" is an old term for killer whales which have been known to visit Henderson Bay from time to time, so if we're feeling extra generous maybe that could be seen as another informational mix-up. The trout fishing isn't half bad there too.

What kills this one for me is that the Tacoma Daily Ledger was a morning paper. It would be tough for the campers to reach the city, tell their story and get it published all in one morning. Maybe they managed to hitch a ride with their electrical friend. It wouldn't be the tallest tale told by returning fishermen.

CK

OddWA #24 - The Lighthouse Lady

Washington Waterways are strewn with many shipwrecks. Few are as large or as dramatic as that of the S.S. Governor, a passenger ship that sank off Point Wilson near Port Townsend in 1921.

The Governor was on its way to Seattle after a stop in Victoria B.C. Shortly after midnight it failed to yield the right of way to the freighter West Hartland, outbound from Port Townsend. The Governor's starboard side was rammed by the freighter. The quick thinking captain of the West Hartland set his speed to full, allowing passengers from the Governor to climb to the prow of his ship.

The Washburn family wasn't so fortunate. The collision with the West Hartland sliced their cabin in half, injuring the father and trapping his two daughters. Once his wife Lucy saw her husband safely aboard the West Hartland, she broke away from crew members who were restraining her and dashed back to the Governor for her daughters. The 400 foot vessel sank in 20 minutes.

Since the wreck, an apparition of a figure wearing a white nightgown has been reported at times near the Point Wilson lighthouse. Some say it's Lucy Washburn, still searching for her daughters.

CK

OddWA #23 - Men In Black

The first CryptoWA covered this, but the era of modern UFO-olgy (along with the term "flying saucer") kicked off here with Kenneth Arnold's sighting at Mt. Rainier in 1947. On the heels of this, another piece of modern folklore began: The Men In Black.

There was an explosion of UFO stories in 1947. It seemed like everyone was seeing saucers around the world. More than a few besides Arnold's cropped up in Washington State. One became known as the Maury Island Incident. The story is convoluted, featuring UFO debris, government investigators perishing in a plane crash, a dead dog and even Kenneth Arnold himself as a peripheral character.

Among the many facets of this wild roller coaster of a tale is the first description of a vaguely threatening, official looking man in dark clothes. Harold Dahl, the source of the Maury Island story, described a visit to his Tacoma home by an individual who seemed strangely well informed about his UFO experience, even though Dahl had yet to describe it publicly.

This kicked off a concept that would appear in countless UFO stories. Later accounts of Men In Black were similar to Dahl's. They usually appear soon after a UFO sighting, seeming like government agents with their their anonymous dark clothes. MIB are often described as being slightly "off" in their mannerisms, as if not quite human or ineffably alien.

The strange, convoluted twists and turns of the Maury Island Incident have made it a lightning rod for skeptics and disbelievers. It's easy to see why. There are just too many odd elements for a rational mind to believe.

Of course, that's just what the Men in Black would want you to think.

CK

OddWA #22 - Kennewick Man

When Kennewick Man was unearthed in 1996 nobody could have guessed at the controversy that would soon surround the 9,000 year old skeleton. Everything from ownership of the remains to his genetic origins stoked a bitter debate between Native Americans and scientists. As the debate raged, nobody chose to point their finger at the most obvious culprit: Kennewick Man himself.

That's right. He's trouble.

A simple Internet news search for "Kennewick Man" turns up countless stories of his misdeeds. The headlines listed here are all real, and they don't even begin to cover the scope of this one-skeleton crime spree. How much longer must our state suffer the depredations of this prehistoric malcontent?

I'm with the Native Americans. Let's get him back in the ground. The sooner, the better.

CK

OddWA #21 - Batsquatch!

Happy Halloween!

I had to do this one simply because everyone should hear the greatest word ever invented: Batsquatch. Yes, as if a gigantic woodland hominid wasn't enough, there are also tales of a version that flies.

In 1994 the Tacoma News Tribune published an account of a young motorist who described a disturbing encounter with a gigantic, blue, bat-winged figure with red glowing eyes on a remote country road near Mount Rainier.

Since then, several other stories of equal... um, credibility have added to the legend that is Batsquatch. Batsquatch sightings often include grisly animal mutilation, so this could be a vacationing Chupacabra, or his not-so-original northern cousin. But let's not judge. If there isn't a Batsquatch I think everybody can agree that there certainly should be one. The name is just too good.

Again, with feeling: BATSQUATCH!

CK

OddWA #20 - Starvation Heights Sanitarium

In 1908 Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard published a book called Fasting For The Cure Of Disease. Her theory on undergoing systematic starvation to overcome illness was considered revolutionary by some, and total quackery by others. Hazzard had enough of a following that she opened a sanitarium in Olalla, Washington, giving it the idyllic name Wilderness Heights. Clients flocked from around the world to try her starvation cure.

But something wasn't quite right about Dr.Hazzard's little institution. Some 40 patients died in her care. True, these were often people who were already desperately ill, but was she really supposed to perform autopsies in her bathtub? It also came to the attention of authorities that jewelry and clothing from Hazzard's recently departed patients often ended up in her own wardrobe.

The first chapter of Wilderness Heights came to an end when a British heiress died at the sanitarium, but not before Hazzard forged her signature in an attempt to gain her estate. A surviving sister testified at the ensuing trial and Hazzard was sent to prison for manslaughter in 1912.

She was paroled just two years later and eventually reopened her sanitarium in 1920 (minus her doctoral credentials). This burned to the ground in 1935, never to rise again.

It's a fitting twist that Linda Burfield Hazzard died in 1938 while undergoing her own starvation therapy.

CK

OddWA #19 - Ghost Ship of The Columbia

The waters near the mouth of the Columbia are sometimes called the Graveyard of The Pacific, and with good reason. There are around 2000 recorded shipwrecks in the vicinity.

Part of this total was a large fleet of fishing boats, most of which capsized in a sudden squall that appeared suddenly on May 4th, 1880. Contemporary newspaper accounts listed anywhere from 60 to 350 crewmen lost in the storm.

Another story emerged from this already epic tale. Several survivors told of a mysterious ship that sailed smoothly through the wreckage, completely untouched by the storm. After the unknown vessel glided calmly through the chaos, it was never seen again.

Was this story the result of delirious survivors? An unparalleled feat of navigation? Naw... A ghost ship is way more fun.

CK

OddWA #18 - It's A Bird(man)!

Kenneth Arnold really started something when he reported those saucers in 1947. Soon, the rest of America had UFO fever. Newspapers were crammed with the latest sightings of saucers and "men from Mars." And it didn't stop with boring old disc-shaped stuff. Several newspapers in Southwest Washington carried stories of "flying men" in 1948, the most famous being in Chehalis and Longview.

In Longview, laundry workers described a trio of flying figures in drab uniform-like flying suits cruising casually over the city on April 10th. Some have theorized that what the workers saw was actually an early attempt at paragliding, though that would be about 14 years before the earliest known prototypes.

So, was it men from the (not-too-distant) future? Aliens? A secret government program? Others might argue that dry-cleaning chemicals should be handled with care.

CK

OddWA #17 - That Sinking Feeling

It's amazing what can transpire on a single, odd, triangular piece of ground. Northwest locals may recognize the Sinking Ship parking garage from Seattle's Pioneer Square. If you're in the market for a cursed piece of land, this fixer upper has loads of potential.

Some local historians think this is the site of the original Suquamish fishing camp of Chief Seattle (Sealth). The remaining history includes the town hanging trees and an owner who mysteriously dropped dead. Maybe it's the shape of the lot? Seattle's assortment of founding fathers each started building their own street grids at different angles. When the streets finally met up, odd locations like this one were pretty common.

The Occidental Hotel, just right of center. Copyright the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

For a time, this was the location of the Occidental Hotel. This grand structure with it's mansard rooftop and column-festooned façade presided over the intersection starting in 1884. But it burned to the ground in the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, along with most of downtown Seattle.

The Seattle Hotel, or the Hotel Seattle as it was originally known.

The last real building before the garage was the once-elegant Seattle Hotel, which fell into disrepute and fiscal problems not long after it opened its doors. One lucky owner, Henry Kubota, bought the hotel weeks before Pearl Harbor, after which he and his family were hauled off to Washington's internment camps. A dapper gent named Edward Camano Cheasty ran Seattle's best clothing store from a corner of the hotel building, only to watch the city's commerce move further north. Cheasty jumped from a competitor's rooftop in 1914.

The Sinking Ship itself was built by a leasing company who bilked the land owners (still the Kubotas) in 1961. They were promised a lovely office high rise and got the now-infamous off kilter eyesore instead.

Some good did come from all this woe and tragedy. The new parking structure was a shock to most Seattleites. The city rallied around the issue in the early 1960's and created the Pioneer Square Historic District, protecting other old edifices from a similar fate.

That's nice, but I'm still not parking my car there.

CK

P.S. If you want to read more about all the cursed goings on at this location, take a look at Sid Andrews' book, "Boren's Block One: A Sinking Ship." I also recommend Robin Shannon's book "Seattle's Historic Hotels."

OddWA #16 - Lost Lakes of Gold

When Captain Ben Ingalls was separated from his army unit in 1855, he must have thought it was his lucky day. His misplaced survey expedition was replaced with a gold strike of epic proportions. Ingalls claimed he found a series of lakes, each surrounded by heaps of high yield gold quartz. The lore around this tale usually includes a huge earthquake driving Ingalls from his camp in the middle of the night.

Ingall's hastily hid a map, but neither it or the lakes were ever seen again. Ingalls himself was killed by a firearm mishap during his first attempt to locate the strike in 1861. Subsequent trips by friends and their descendants have never revealed the location of this fabulous lost treasure.

The story of that earthquake has since merged with ones from a huge earthquake that rocked Washington in 1872. That temblor reshaped a number of peaks in Washington's interior, and temporarily dammed the Columbia River (allowing local tribes to stroll across the river bottom). Many familiar with Ingall's tale think the three lakes, if they were ever real, are now buried beneath vast piles of rock, not to mention heaps of myth, hearsay and rumor.

CK

OddWA #15 - The Streamlined Ghost

There was a lot of excitement about the return of the former Washington State ferry Kalakala to our waters in 1998. After decades of service between Seattle and my home town of Bremerton, the magnificent streamline ferry was rescued, seemingly from oblivion on the shores of Kodiak island in Alaska and towed back to Puget Sound.

It's a funny thing. I usually champion any effort to preserve our local history, but I'm conflicted about Kalakala. It sometimes feels like we said goodbye to a cherished family pet, only to have it dug up and left on the porch.

Our memories of Kalakala from 1935 to 1967 can easily outweigh the awkward, accident prone vessel and concentrate on a the striking art deco creation it was. We can forget the fact that a coffee cup in the cafe would only be filled halfway, since vibrations that wracked the ferry made a full cup a dicey proposition. We can forget the times it plowed into docks and other ferries due to the poor design of its pilot house. We can just think back to the days it carried 5,000 shipyard workers per trip during World War II. We have years of great memories to look back on.

Kalakala is reported to be haunted by the requisite number of ghosts that hang out in spooky old boats, so I've included one in the second picture (it's tiny). This is meant to be Adelaide Bebb, a sad young lady who took her own life while aboard Kalakala in 1940.

But Kalakala is its own ghost. One look at its present state and that should be apparent to anyone. I sometimes wonder if it would have been better off out of sight, returning to the soil on a distant Alaskan beach.

CK

OddWA #14 - The Pickled Pioneer

 

An unusual wagon train left Bethel, Missouri for the Oregon Territory in May of 1855. At it's head was a wagon first modified for the role of an ambulance, but hastily converted again to serve as a hearse. This contained the coffin of Willy Keil. Willy was the son of Wilhelm Keil, a religious leader who journeyed westward with his commune of followers in search of a "New Eden."

Dr. Keil promised Willy he could lead the expedition, but he died of malaria shortly before the group's departure. So, Wilhelm constructed a lead lined coffin and filled it with the Bethelites own Golden Rule whiskey. This preserved Willy for the long trip West. True to his father's promise, he was at the head of the procession.

The group arrived near present-day Menlo, Washington in November and finally buried Willy Keil. His grave can still be seen today, and he is sometimes called the Pickled Pioneer.

The Bethelites, on the other hand, didn't stick around very long."New Eden" proved too dank and wet for their tastes, so they moved further south into present day Oregon, establishing the town of Aurora.

CK

OddWA #13 - The Great Windshield Mystery

A strange phenomenon swept through the Puget Sound region in April of 1954. Residents in Bellingham started reporting numerous, tiny pits in their car windshields. The mystery pits began to spread. Soon pitted windshields were reported in Anacortes, Mount Vernon and on Whidbey Island. This horror continued to spread until it reached Seattle.

It was a genuine cause of concern. As the number of cars with pitted windshields grew, so did the theories to explain them. Some thought it was cosmic rays. Other cited atmospheric conditions and radioactive fallout. More creative types blamed sand fleas -- claiming their eggs had somehow survived the glass making process and later hatched. A few citizens claimed they saw their windshields bubbling as new pits appeared.

Seattle police were routinely flagged down by drivers who had noticed the strange pits. The mayor of Seattle sent urgent telegrams to the governor and President Eisenhower, asking for help.

Fortunately, top men at the University of Washington brought their huge brains to bear on the problem. They couldn't help but notice that the pits were mostly appearing in older cars. The public largely rejected this unexciting explanation outright.

Finally, a larger investigation by the Seattle Police Department agreed that the pits were just regular wear on older vehicles.

This odd little tale is still mentioned in psychology textbooks. The great windshield mystery of 1954 was a perfect example of collective delusion that feeds on itself, and grows in the telling.

Interesting, but not as cool as cosmic rays.

CK

OddWA #12 - Drake on Bellingham Bay

It's fun illustrating stories I've gathered over the years in the CryptoWA picture series, but here's one of my own. There is a bit of truth here with just enough spit and bailing wire to hold it together -- Just what a good yarn needs. This is a work of pure speculation. Still, I have to admit, I had fun concocting this one.

Sir Francis Drake, all around dashing hero and Queen Elizabeth's would-be squeeze, landed somewhere on the west coast of North America on June 17th, 1579. He stayed for over a month, repairing his ship and hobnobbing with the local populace. Drake named the land he found "New Albion," a poetic name for Olde England. Just the thing to win points with his gal Elizabeth, a.k.a. his Monarch with The Power of Life and Death.

But where was New Albion? Plenty of historians stick with the latitude given in Drake's official account, Encompassing The Globe, written in 1582. That pegs his landing at 38 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude, somewhere in northern California. Some think there is more to it than that. The true location of Drake’s landing site has been debated for centuries.

According to R. Samuel Bawlf’s book The Secret Voyage of Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth only allowed an edited version of Drake's story to be printed. This was due to England's ongoing war with Spain, who had competing claims in that part of the world. This may also be due to Drake’s belief that he had found the Northwest Passage, which would have been a hot strategic piece of information. Drake reportedly asked to set the record straight a few years later, and was firmly denied.

Surviving hand-written records in the British Library place Drake's landing further north at 44 degrees. That puts Drake's landing site in Oregon. British historian Bob Ward enthusiastically supports Whale Cove, Oregon largely due to it's physical similarity to a map drawn by Jodocus Hondius, a contemporary of Drake's and a master cartographer who based his 1589 map on journals and eyewitness accounts.

Still, Bawlf and a number of folks in British Columbia claim the true (and concealed) latitude is closer to their neighborhood. This is supported by Richard Hakluyt's 1587 map of the New World showing Nova Albion at 50 degrees north latitude.

We may never know for sure. Drake's original logbook and artifacts from his journey were destroyed when Whitehall palace burned to the ground in 1591.

Where does this leave us?

If (and it’s admittedly a big if) the location from Drake's book is out the window, I say the whole story is up for grabs. Since Drake seems to have mapped part of the Alaskan coast with a fair degree of accuracy, New Albion could be anywhere from northern California to southern Alaska.

So, why not Washington State?

Nothing on our Pacific coast is a good match with the Hondius map, but there is a remarkably good fit near the end of the Strait of Juan De Fuca: Bellingham Bay.

It sounds odd, but it conforms with an amazing number of key elements, both on the Hondius map and in Drake's written record. High, light colored cliffs? Check. Crappy Summer weather that would depress even an Englishman? Yup. Snow-covered mountains looming in every direction, even in June? Uh huh. The Lummi tribe traditionally set up a seasonal encampment, exactly where a village is shown on a map from Drake's era.

Think about it. If Drake did find the Strait of Juan de Fuca, utterly convinced he'd discovered the much sought Northwest Passage, wouldn't he at least take a little peek? I mean, this is Mr. Adventure himself. It's hard to imagine him saying "Hey, The Northwest Passage. Make a note of it, Jimmy."

People who favor the B.C. landing site theory would agree, but I don't see geographic features that line up well with the Hondius map up that way.

And I do favor using the map by Jocodus Hondius. He was a contemporary of Drake's, had access to Admiralty records when he made the official map of Drake's voyage, and was one of the preeminent map makers of his day. Combining his map with Drake’s verbal description seems like a good way to go when unraveling this little mystery.

So, let’s start with that. Thanks to Google Earth and a rainy afternoon, I took snapshots of the five most popular spots for Drake’s landing, then tossed Bellingham Bay into the mix. Check out how they line up.

(click to enlarge)

The closest matches are B. and D. Of the rest, one is Comox in British Columbia (F) . All of the others are in the San Francisco Bay area (A, C and E).

Image D is Whale Cove in Oregon. Image B is Bellingham Bay.

Whale Cove does look pretty good, but it can be disqualified for two reasons. First, it lacks the island just outside the encircling bay shown on the Hondius map. Yes, it is claimed that a sand bar is visible at low tide, but Bellingham Bay has a real island in about the right place. The second reason is scale.

Scale is something that seldom comes up when talking about the lost bay of New Albion. Yet, Drake provided a handy measurement in his description. He mentions that his camp was “neere about 3 quarters of an English mile distant” from the indigenous settlement. According to the Hondius map, both were located along the perimeter of the bay. Whale Cove is only 1000 feet across (with very poor shelter from the ocean, I might add). That’s nowhere near big enough to fit both locations using Drake’s own words, and hardly a “goodly sized bay.”

The fact is, without frequent breaks in the cloud cover, Drake may have had little more than his best guess when it came to jotting down his latitude. So, it's anybody's guess until really compelling archeological evidence crops up. He may have spent that month in California, but I like to imagine him fetching up on the shores of this place, long before it was Washington.

And hey, at least the map is a good fit.

CK

OddWA #11 - Everybody Needs A Hobby

A team of forestry workers were treated to an unusual sight ten years ago in Southeast Washington. The crew of 14 were busy planting trees when they noticed a strange craft approaching a herd of elk on a nearby hillside. The curved disk flew in an uneven, "wobbly" manner. As the herd bolted, the craft managed to snag a single adult elk, wobbling even more and occasionally bumping into trees as the animal was lifted from the ground.

The captive elk soon disappeared and the UFO made it's halting, ungainly way up into the sky to the east, vanishing from view.

Given the awkward behavior of the craft and the strange timing of planting trees in February, I'd say more than one party in this tale may have had diminished capacity that day. Whether this we due to distilled spirits, or some sort of freaky space hooch is entirely up to you.

CK

OddWA #10 - A Mythical Tomb

The Internet. It destroys almost as many myths as it creates. It was common knowledge among the populace of Washington for many years that untold number of workers are entombed in the vast structure of Grand Coulee Dam. I remember kids telling each other with ghoulish glee that once a worker fell, his cohorts were powerless to save him, or stop the immense, relentless cascade of wet cement.

Great story. Imagine my relief and disappointment to find that this never happened.

Yes, several workers did perish during Grand Coulee's construction, but nobody was trapped in wet cement. It turns out this didn't even start with Grand Coulee -- It started with an accident during the construction of Hoover Dam some years earlier. The tale later migrated to Washington.

Even in the original story, nobody was really trapped -- It turns out the cement pours were done in many shallow layers. Plus, it doesn't really help the structural integrity of a dam to wall up a bunch of dead guys. Go figure.

Still, I had to make this picture to commemorate a simpler, creepier time.

CK

OddWA #9 - Accursed Diamond!

When John Considine wasn't busy shooting Seattle's police chief (and getting away with it), he built lavish theaters and music halls. Considine was stunned to find former Vaudeville superstar May Yohe scrubbing floors in a shipyard office in 1918. Yohe was once the toast of four continents, and formerly Lady Francis Hope. The Hope family owned a really big diamond.

After years of lavish globetrotting, Yohe and her third husband ran out of money, ending up in a Seattle tenement. She attributed her lowly state to the curse of the Hope Diamond.

The death of a gem merchant who briefly owned the diamond made some headlines in 1908, but it was May's tale that really caught the imagination of the world.

May went on to tell her story -- and a highly fictional history of the diamond -- in a tell-all book, followed by a series of silent films in the 1920's (all flops). She tried repeatedly to relaunch her career as a stage diva, usually wearing a replica of the famous diamond, but theater critics must have been in on the curse. Further efforts to start an inn (bankrupt) and a chicken farm north of Seattle (burned) all failed.

But her PR efforts on behalf of the Hope Diamond were arguably a huge success. May Yohe created a story that persists today.

CK

OddWA #8 - Jim Carter's Run

I'll say one thing for accounts of Washington's Bigfoot: they kick ass. This is no peaceful root munching pacifist, placidly wandering our remote forests. This Bigfoot will mess you up, and then some.

One such story is of an experienced mountaineer and skier name Jim Carter, who went up Mount St. Helens in May of 1950 and never came down.

Carter apparently told his climbing buddies he would wait for them downslope and take their picture when they went past near Dog's Head. When they came down the hill, Carter was gone. Only an empty film box and the tracks of Carter's skis were found. Carter had apparently taken off on a mad dash, jumping "2 or 3" crevasses, "taking chances no skier of his caliber would take." The tracks lead over the edge of Ape Canyon.

No trace of Carter was ever found. In an interview with the Longview Washington Times from 1963, one of the search team members concluded that "the apes got him."

I have two questions about all this. First, what ended up on the film in Carter's camera? Second, is the plural of Bigfoot "Bigfoots" or "Bigfeet?"

CK

OddWA #7 - Salt Chuck Oluk Triptych

Anywhere people live by water, they tend to see strange stuff in it. Dip below the surface and every sea or lake has monster yarn or two. Washington state, with its 3200 miles of coastal waterways, is no exception. Stories of a large, serpent-like critter have been reported by newspapers and inebriated fishermen alike since the 1800's.

The Oregonian newspaper dubbed their local serpent Colossal Claude in the early 1930's. Around the same time in British Columbia, The Victoria Daily Times had a contest to name the local sea monster, selecting Cadborosaurus or "Caddy" as the winner.

The name I like is the one used by the Lushootseed Salish: Salt Chuck Oluk. I couldn't pick a single story, so I decided to make a three-panel picture, each depicting a Salt Chuck tale from a different time.

Panel 1

Panel 1 shows a family trip to the Dungeness Spit from 1961. Two sisters and their children reportedly saw a strange, long necked serpent frolicking in the water between the Spit and Port Townsend.

Panel 2

Though Salt Chuck stories are most often associated with the Strait of Juan De Fuca and the interior waterways of Washington and B.C., quite a few are set near the mouth of the Columbia River. The crew of a fishing boat all told of a close encounter in 1939.

Panel 3

Sea monsters play a part in the lore of many local Native American tribes. An atlatl (spear thrower), adorned with a carving of a great serpent was unearthed near La Conner and was dated to 200 A.D. Similar monsters can be seen in numerous petroglyphs scattered throughout Puget Sound and British Columbia.

These are generally explained as images of spirit guides, but the Squamish tribe has a very tangible take on Salt Chuck Oluk. Tribal lore says that sightings grew more common with the arrival of white settlers. This, they say, is because Salt Chuck is a "hated totem," personifying the greed and avarice that Europeans/Americans brought with them.

As this greed infected the tribe, Salt Chuck Oluk appeared near Brockton Point blocking the entire channel. A young warrior -- Tenas Tyee -- went forth to slay the serpent, armed with only his hunting knife. He dove into the waters every day, seeking the serpent's heart. After four years, he succeeded, freeing his people from their unnatural lust for gold.

Salt Chuck Oluk may have left the Squamish alone after that, but something like him kept appearing for years to come. Interestingly, stories seem to stop after the 1960's. It could be Salt Chuck has been replaced by more glamorous creatures, like Big Foot and space aliens, or maybe we're just not looking hard enough.

CK

OddWA #6 - The Great Airship Rash of 1896-97

It all started with the sighting of a great, propeller-driven airship over Sacramento in 1896. Soon after, towns from Texas to Canada reported seeing similar craft. These sightings continued into 1897. Marble, Washington was no exception. Mill workers reportedly saw an airship flying toward the northeast on May 5th, 1897. A local paper reported that, "It was in full view, and the fans could easily be recognized."

Similar newspaper accounts were invariably upbeat and congenial. It seemed to be generally accepted that clever individuals had built such machines, even though the golden age of zeppelins was still some years away.

CK

OddWA #5 - Armillaria Ostoyae

One day you're on top of the world, and the next you're second best.

A giant fungus was discovered near Mount Adams earlier this decade. Washington's Armillaria Ostoyae (a.k.a. Honey Mushroom) covers 1500 acres, and was determined to be the largest single life form on earth.

Barely a year had passed before a bigger Armillaria was discovered in Oregon, estimated at 2000 acres.

I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage our local contender. Don't give up! You can recapture the lead! That, or civic minded Washingtonians may have to pay a little visit to visit Oregon, sauteing pans in hand.

CK

OddWA #4 - Mr. Cooper's Jump - 1971

A man calling himself "Dan Cooper" single handedly ushered in the era of modern airport security when he hijacked a plane on its way to Seattle from Portland. D.B. Cooper also spawned countless yarns, theories and debates as to whether he survived his jump from a Boeing 727 over southern Washington... in pitch darkness... in the middle of a rainstorm.

I do think that solving this mystery would be a shame. Living in concealment for 38 years, or moldering in a remote forest are both less interesting than a bona fide folk hero.

CK

OddWA #3 - The Harvard Exit

Long before the building was converted to a movie theater, the site of the Harvard Exit was home to the Woman's Century Club of Seattle (which still holds meetings there). Over the years, folks have claimed that ladies of a bygone era are still knocking about the place. Some say they've seen Bertha Landes, who was club president in 1915 and mayor of Seattle from 1926 to 1928.

CK