In 1792, naval officer George Vancouver was exploring Puget Sound, naming things after his pals on behalf of the British Empire. Of course, these things already had names (and names that sounded a lot cooler than “Puget,” “Gardner,” and “Whidbey”), but they were hard to pronounce, and asking the natives what they called the local […]
Monthly archives for January, 2018
Battery
Six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States military began construction of Fort Ebey at the westernmost point of Whidbey Island. Overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the fort was to stand as the first line of defense for Puget Sound, home to shipyards and Boeing plants crucial for the war […]
Rain Shadow
Not much you’d want to consume grows in Western Washington. If you can eat, drink, or smoke it, chances are it was grown in a greenhouse or the rain shadow east of the Cascades. Seattle apologists will tell you it rains more in New York, while neglecting to mention that several epic storms just ain’t the […]