Winter/Spring 2014 – Summer/Fall Sou’wester

The long awaited (at least by me!) 2014 issue of the Sou’wester is ‘out’ at last! Once again I had the pleasure of being guest editor of the publication which means, in essence, writing it and submitting it to Pacific County Historical Society President Steve Rogers who does the layout and turns it over to the printer. Sounds easy. But, it isn’t. Mostly, it is a time-consuming proposition.

I thought when I turned in my copy a year ago that it would be the “catch up” issue. That is, that the magazine would actually carry a publication date of the year in which it was published. That’s always a toughie with a volunteer-based project and, once again, the dear old Sou’wester is a year behind. My fondest hope is that, in the meantime, I haven’t learned ‘new’ facts that make me itch to rewrite a corrected version.

Why was it called “Sherwood Forest?”

That’s a strong possibility, especially with “A Sense of Place: Names of the North Beach Peninsula” as the publication’s topic. Even as I worked on fact-gathering and fine-tuning back in 2013 and early 2014, I found it hard to sort through the disparate information about Peninsula place names. More than once I wished I had asked more questions of my grandparents and their friends. Exactly who was Joe John, anyway, and where did he live on the road we call by his name? And why, even in my childhood, did my grandfather still refer to the town just south of Oysterville as “Sealand” rather than “Nahcotta?” From our twenty-first century vantage point, Sealand’s year or two of existence wasn’t long enough to make it, rather than Nahcotta, the preferred name for sixty years!

How did Klipsan Beach get its name?

One of the prime examples of “being there” with regard to place names is the Peninsula’s Waikiki Beach. The logical explanation (and the one I had heard over and over) was that back in 1811 a crew member from Astor’s ship,  the Tonquin, was drowned and washed up on that beach. He was from the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) and, thus, the name Waikiki was given to the cove in his honor. But, according to the late Rod Williams, that’s not how it was at all. Rod happened to be a witness to that particular bit of history – the naming, not the 1811 drowning – and his version is also recorded in “A Sense of Place.”

Rod’s story and many others, equally interesting, can be found in this issue of the Sou’wester. The magazine is one of the perks of membership in the Pacific County Historical Society and, if you belong, you received it in your mail earlier this week. Otherwise, it is for sale ($8.95) at the PCHS Museum in South Bend and at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum in Ilwaco. I highly recommend it!