Northwest Coast | LC's Cottage

The Hubster and I stopped at Deception Pass State Park to stretch our legs. You might want to make this park a vacation destination. There is camping, hiking, fishing, swimming, kayaking and more. This is Washington state’s most visited park.

Indeed, it was a very busy place in the short time that we were there!

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

“Deception Pass State Park spreads over 3,854 acres, a marine and camping park with 77,000 feet of saltwater shoreline and 33,900 feet of freshwater shoreline on three lakes. The park is actually located on two islands — Fidalgo to the north and Whidbey to the south. The Canoe Pass and Deception Pass bridges connect the two islands, creating a gateway for exploration.” – Deception Pass Park Foundation

In 1792, the British Government directed Captain George Vancouver to sail to Nootka Sound to meet Spanish commander Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, to not only implement the terms of the Nootka Convention, but also complete a detailed survey of the Northwest Coast.

From Vancouver’s June 10, 1792 journal entry –

“…a very narrow and intricate channel, which, for a considerable distance, was not forty yards in width, and abounded with rocks above and beneath the surface of the water. These impediments, in addition to the great rapidity and irregularity of the tide, rendered the passage navigable only for boats or vessels of very small burthen…. I distinguished by the name…Deception Passage.”

One can walk, not only on the bridge, but under it as well. We hiked the Bowman Hill side, on Fidalgo Island, since that is the direction we were coming from and had parked.

These colorful kayakers had come from Lottie Bay and were heading through Canoe Pass to Strawberry Island. You can get a good sense of direction by clicking on the map above.

“In the waters of Deception Pass, just east of the present-day Deception Pass Bridge, is a small island known as Ben Ure Island. The island became infamous for its activity of human smuggling of migrant Chinese people for local labor. Ben Ure and his partner Lawrence “Pirate” Kelly were quite profitable at their human smuggling business and played hide-and-seek with the United States Customs Department for years. Ure’s own operation at Deception Pass in the late 1880s consisted of Ure and his Native-American wife. Local tradition has it that his wife would camp on the nearby Strawberry Island (which was visible from the open sea) and signal him with a fire on the island’s summit to alert him to whether or not it was safe to attempt to bring the human cargo he illegally transported ashore. For transport, Ure would tie the people up in burlap bags so that if customs agents approached he could toss the bagged people overboard. The tidal currents carried the entrapped drowned migrants’ bodies to San Juan Island to the north and west of the pass; many ended up in Dead Man’s Bay.”

You can read more about this area from Wikipedia and Deception Pass State Park History, such as the Coast Salish Indigenous people, the prison rock quarry, operated between 1910-1914, and the Civilian Conservation Corps work in 1933.