Historical Tourist: A Day Trip in Small-Town Washington
Updated: Mar 13, 2021
Living along the Pacific Northwest coast, there is an abundance of art and cultural exhibits. The 21st anniversary of MoPOP (originally the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum) brings about over two decades of modern popular culture and arts focus for the museums of the Seattle area. The Seattle Art Museum is yet another example of focus on the arts and culture in King County. Among its museums, however, and to seemingly less popular appeal, reign the Boeing Museum of Flight and the Burke Museum of Natural History on the UW campus.
King County, however, even with 58 museums, is not the only place you can discover the local history of the state, and perhaps the brightest gem the state offers is a 2-hour drive down the coast to the Aberdeen-Westport area. Here, you can take advantage of the coastal location of the state to find the most centralized variety of seafaring history museums and opportunities in the state. Last spring, my nautically-inclined brother and I made this trip ourselves, and the sites detailed herein are locations that you can visit yourself in the span of a mere 12-hour day.
First and foremost, the most widely-renowned site in the progress of our day was the one we planned our entire trip around: the Lady Washington. The Lady Washington is a reconstruction of an 18th-century sailing ship, originating in the Atlantic and refitted to make the first American voyage to the Pacific Coast of the North American continent. The current ship in port at Aberdeen, however, is a recreation of the original, set to sail in the 1980s. Now, if the name sounds familiar--or perhaps if it doesn't--you may instead recognize the ship from its Hollywood premiere as the HMS Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, the ship that Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow commandeer out of Port Royal. The ship has seen a lot of tourist traffic from this latest claim to fame. During the summer months, the ship sails up and down the Washington State Coast in order to entertain throngs of summertime tourists and families before returning to its home port for the winter. My brother and I took advantage of its reduced rates for sail trips during the winter months to spend a few hours watching--and at times aiding--the crew as the ship was motored out of dock and sailed on its own wind power up the Chehalis River from Gray's Harbor.
Based on the scheduling of this focal-point of our visit, my brother and I were able to reach the other two local maritime-based history sites. These two locations are a must-see as a pair; if you purchase a ticket to see one, you are rewarded with a discount rate to visit the second. These two centerpieces of the West Coast area are Westport Maritime Museum and the Gray's Harbor Lighthouse. While the two operate in conjunction, they are both very different styles of historical tourist sites.
The first of the pair that we visited was the lighthouse. It was a very nice break after having spent the trip in the car, as the majority of the site is a guided tour that takes the group up through the old lighthouse to the top. The overall hike is spliced with intermittent storytelling about the lifetime of the lighthouse and details about its functioning. The room directly below the old lens--in pristine condition--still holds the cast iron oil basin that was used to light the signal lamp. The house still operates today, even though it is further inland than when it was originally built, and utilizes a modern electric lamp affixed to the exterior of the lamp room. The tour guides strongly encourage picture-taking, and the view from the top is incredible.
The Maritime Museum--a short five-minute drive away--is based out of the old Coast Guard house, stationed just down the road from the newer Coast Guard facility. If the weather holds, it is definitely worth the time to start (or end) your tour with the outdoor exhibits, glass cabinets that house the skeletons of many a maritime creature. The largest the museum holds is a whale skeleton, a young whale, the sign states, indicating that the species can grow to far larger sizes. Within the white-washed building, there are rooms full of the more classical nautical pieces, including old 19th century naval regalia, scale models of rigged vessels, and even a rotating ship's wheel. All this, at least, is one of the rooms of the old Coast Guard house. Other rooms are devoted to local artwork, natural history and artifacts that were brought up from the beaches, a wing devoted to the Coast Guard history exclusively, and one room that makes an effort to show the artifacts related to the first explorers and settlers of the area. The one item I found most interesting in my exploration of the museum was a 19th Century ship's log, displayed in one of the upstairs rooms, the one devoted to early settlement and exploration.
Altogether, these three locations can devour a large part of a day. The Maritime Museum is one that will take up a lot of time all on its own, as the exhibits themselves hold an extensive array of items and plaques to read. The evening sails on the Lady Washington will take 2-3 hours, and if you, like me, decided to take advantage of the reduced winter rates, a decent pair of gloves and warm jacket is highly recommended. As amazing as having access to all the King County museums is, if nautical history is more up your alley or you just want a family day-trip where you can have an excuse to eat lunch at the beach, I highly recommend planning out a tour of the three sites out at Westport and Aberdeen.
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