KENNY HUY NGUYEN / OREGON COAST VISITORS ASSOCIATION Whale Tales and More A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANNON BEACH The beauty and bounty of Oregon’s North Coast had been home to the Clatsop, Nehalem, Tillamook and other tribes for generations when the first Europeans began reaching its shores. Spanish explorers like Juan de Fuca were nosing around the Pacific Northwest as early as the 1500s, followed by the British, early American settlers and others trading furs and looking for the elusive Northwest Passage. Dick Basch, a lifelong Cannon Beach resident, is a descendant of those who once lived in the village of Cannon Beach. As a former vice chairman of the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes, he’s worked with city leaders and local organizations to make sure local tribal history is known. “We are still here,” he says. “We’re not merely a monument in our old village site. We are part of the community. We hold our arms open for visitors and locals in Cannon Beach.” He suggests that visitors check out the Welcome Pole — a 10-foot-tall work of art located at NeCus’ Park, which used to be the old Cannon Beach School. This site along the bank of Ecola Creek at the park’s edge marks the location of the last NeCus’ village in Cannon Beach before colonization. It was also here that William Clark, Sacagawea, and other members of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition met and traded with local tribes. The Welcome Pole is one of the highlights of the Cannon Beach Public Art Walking Tour. “People are welcome as long as they treat the land and the people who live there in a good way and with respect,” Basch says. Go to Clatsop-Nehalem.com to learn more. William Clark, one of the first settlers of European origin to land in Cannon Beach, was imminently impressed. Standing near the summit of Tillamook Head afforded “the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed,” he wrote in his journal in 1806. The explorers’ good fortune continued when the team learned of tribal members harvesting a beached whale that washed ashore near Chapman Beach. Clark arrived in time to trade for 300 pounds of whale blubber and a few gallons of highly prized oil. Clark commemorated the event by naming the adjacent creek Ecola (a rough pronunciation of the Chinook trade word for “whale”), a moniker that was also later applied to the 1,023-acre state park that preserves the magnificent coastal landscape rising to the north. Near the corner of Hemlock and Third Street, tiny Whale Park commemorates the historical encounter with the bronze sculpture Whale and a fine overlook of sand, surf and sea. It’s how things are done in Cannon Beach: effortlessly weaving together the community’s natural beauty, rich history and artistic soul. Whale Park cannonbeach.org 5
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