The first written reference to the Hoh River occurred in 1787 when a longboat crew from the English Captain Charles Barkley’s ship, Imperial Eagle was attacked while landing to get fresh water. Barkley said the crew was massacred. The Indians maintain the crew was captured and enslaved. Barkley named the nearby Destruction Island and The Destruction River for the event. The river was called “Ohohlet” by the Indians. It meant, “Fast moving water.” The name was later shortened to “Hoh.”
Hoh River in Winter
In 1792 the American Captain Robert Gray discovered the Columbia River and named it for his ship. That was the year the English Captain George Vancouver mapped the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, Hood Canal and the Georgia Strait. The Spanish built a Fort at Neah Bay.
In 1793 the Scotsman Mackenzie completed the first journey by land across the North American Continent to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Bella Coola River. In 1805 the Americans Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia. The right of discovery gave England, Spain and America competing claims to the Pacific Northwest.
This claim was ignored by the Russians who had already begun their journey east from Kamchatka to the New World. They were looking for profits for the stockholders of the Russian American Company. This was a private concern who would claim as assets Alaska south to Northern California and Hawaii. The Russian method of hunting the fur seal and sea otter in the Aleutians wrote one of the most brutal chapters in the history of the fur trade.
Autumn Morning on the Hoh
One description tells of the Russians arriving at an Aleut village in summer. The first order of business was to make hostages out of a number of children. Fox traps were issued to the Natives who were required to deliver furs as a tax and a ransom for their children. In the spring the Russians got their traps back with all of the furs that were caught. The Natives recovered their children and traded for more goods that put them in debt for another year.
Once the otters, seals and fox were gone the Russians moved on with impressed crews of Aleuts who were forced to hunt down more fur if they wanted to see their homes again.
That is how a Russian ship Sv. Nicolai came to be caught in a November gale off the coast of the North Olympic Peninsula in 1808. Captain Bulygin of the Nicolai had been sent by the Russian America Company to explore the coast of what the Americans called Oregon Country between The Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Columbia River. Of course Bulygin was hunting for sea otters but he was also looking for anchorages for large ships and farmland that could supply Russian Alaska with the fresh food they needed to prevent scurvy. The Nikolai was wrecked just north of the Quileute River.
What follows is a tale of treachery, violence and madness that ultimately revealed the humane and decent qualities of the parties involved.
Summer on the Hoh, with Steelhead
The Quileute at La Push lived in a constant state of vigilance. They were continually raided by the Haida, Tlingit and Makah from the North, the Clallam from the east and the Columbia River tribes to the south. So when a ship load of strangers washed up on shore the Quileute are ready to defend their lands.
After an initial conflict, the shipwreck survivors headed south to meet up with another ship believed to be in Gray’s Harbor. The party included Anna Petrovna, wife of Nikolai Bulygin Captain of the Nikolai. She was captured by the Hoh tribe during an attempted crossing of the Hoh River.
The rest of the party hiked upriver about 13 miles to spend the winter in a hastily constructed blockhouse. During the winter Bulygin tried to ransom his wife with some of the crew’s remaining firearms. Anna Petrovna refused to join her husband’s rude camp in the wilderness saying she was being treated very well by her captors. She advised the others to surrender to the Indians who would ransom them back to a passing European ship.
This drove the captain mad. He tried to kill his wife, the Hoh Chief, the interpreter and himself. He eventually surrendered his command to Timofei Tarakanov, a Russian mountain man whose skill in the wilderness and dealings with the Indians kept the shipwrecked survivors together and alive through the winter. The castaways survived on salmon obtained from the same Indians they were fighting.
Searun Cutthroat
Eventually the entire expedition was captured. In May of 1810 the American Ship Lydia anchored at Neah Bay. Captain T. Brown of the Lydia was able to purchase 13 of the Nikolai survivors. Anna Petrovna was not among them.
In 1812 The Russians gave up their claims to what would be called the Oregon Country and went south to California building Fort Ross near Bodega Bay. That was the same year the United States declared its first war, on Britain. As the War of 1812 ground to a stalemate Great Britain learned the United States could not be bullied. In 1818 Britain and the United States agreed to a common boundary with Canada. The new boundary followed the 49th parallel west to the crest of the Rockies. The disputed Oregon country would be jointly occupied by both countries. It was a diplomatic ploy the British would use to eliminate the Spanish at Nootka Sound. In 1819 Spain agreed to stay south of the 42nd parallel in California, ending all Spanish land claims in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1824 the Americans countered the British with another joint occupancy treaty, this time with Russia who agreed to move north of the 49th parallel, to a territory that was also claimed by Britain. This left the Strait of Juan de Fuca with two rivals for ownership. That was until the signing of the Oregon Treaty of 1846 when the boundary between the United States and Canada extended westward along the 49th parallel to the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This gave the Americans title to the Olympic Peninsula. Not that it mattered much at the time. This was a mountainous area covered with a thick growth of almost impenetrable timber that made travel by land extremely difficult. The rivers that came from the Olympic Mountains were short violent streams that defied navigation by anyone but the Native Americans who had a long tradition of poling their cedar dugout canoes upstream to hunt, fish, gather food and trade with inland villages.
While some maintained that Native Americans did not venture inland because of their superstitions about the land being haunted by evil spirits, evidence would suggest otherwise. The earliest settlers mention lush prairies throughout Western Washington. These prairies were savannah grasslands that were maintained by the Native American practice of burning every three to five years. The fires kept the encroaching evergreens from taking over, attracted game and propagated a variety of plants that were used for food, fiber and medicine.
Chinook on the Hoh
In 1849 the first permanent residents of the Olympic Peninsula, the Hudson Bay trappers John Everett and John Sutherland paddled their canoe from Victoria to Crescent Beach on the Strait of Juan de Fuca where they were adopted by the Clallam.
At the time, the settlers of Oregon Territory described the few settlers north of the Columbia River as “the crudest elements of the frontier.”
By 1853 these future Washingtonians were seeking independence from Oregon. Isaac Stevens, a West Point graduate who had risen to the rank of major general in the Mexican War was rewarded by being named Washington’s Territorial Governor, Superintendent of Indian Affairs and leader of the Northern Pacific Railroad survey all at the same time.
Steven’s political machine was described by his opponents as “perpetuating a political dynasty which stinks in the nostrils of all honest men.”
Stevens was in a hurry to make treaties with the tribes that would extinguish their title to the land so it could be legally homesteaded by white settlers. The Indians were not in the same hurry.
The Homestead Law of 1862 was the coolest thing to ever hit this country, unless you were an Indian. At the time they were not considered U.S. Citizens. Indians were unable to file homestead claims on their own land. Everyone else just had to build a residence at least 12 feet square, cultivate a crop and live there five years. That gave you clear title to 160 acres of prime bottom land. The railroad was coming. The land rush was on.
In 1878 Luther Ford a Civil War veteran filed a Homestead claim on the Forks Prairie. Later homesteaders settled south on the Bogachiel and Hoh rivers until 1909 when President Theodore Roosevelt declared the area a Forest Reserve to preserve what was left of the Olympic elk.
Olympic Elk on the banks of the Hoh
The elk had been market hunted for their meat, antlers, hides and ivory teeth or just shot and left by thrill-seeking low-lifes who liked to watch them fall. The Government put a bounty on wolves, bears and cougars. Varmint hunting became respectable. It helped homestead families survive the Great Depression in the wilderness.
Drifting the Hoh
By 1937 the elk had expanded beyond the carrying capacity of many parts of their range. Elk in the Hoh valley were starving and loaded with internal parasites. The Game Commission opened an eight-day season in October and November in Clallam and Jefferson Counties for any and all elk.
William D. Welch of the Port Angeles Evening News journeyed to the upper Hoh River that October to cover what he called “The Elk War.”
Welch described the “red helmeted army of 5, 280 hunters waging war against the Roosevelt elk in the West End of the Olympic Peninsula. Welch, along with local residents described the opening day salvo as a battle. As with any war there were casualties. This was before our current emphasis on hunter safety. It was a common practice for hunters to surround the unsuspecting elk herd who had never been hunted and open fire. This meant the hunters were often firing at each other while blazing away at the elk. One man died in a fusillade of bullets fired at a bull elk. A packhorse was shot while carrying an elk. A boy shot himself in the leg while cleaning his gun. Three hunters were badly burned when one of the nimrods shot a can of gasoline inside their tent. Another drowned trying to drive through the flooding Hoh River before the invention of four-wheel drive.
In addition, an estimated 700 elk were killed with many more wounded. The figure might have been much higher except for a sudden storm that dumped so much rain, hunting was out of the question. The elk hunters were forced to concentrate on just trying to survive.
Welch describes the sorry spectacle when thousands of soaking wet elk hunter tried to drown their sorrows in liquor. They descended upon nearby Forks, which had run out of whiskey even before the elk season had even started. All Forks had left was, some gin, which was never very popular on the frontier.
Steelhead
In 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Olympic National Park. Since that time The Hoh River has become known as the home to the last great runs of salmon and steelhead in America. Here is a story of the Hoh River from “Fast Moving Water-Images and Essays from The Hoh River.” The book was published by The Hoh River Trust. It is available at hohrivertrust.org
Hoh River Bridge
Alien Fish Camp
I drove up the Hoh River valley looking for a place to camp. On any given day on the Hoh river in the fall can be the best fishing there is. I stopped at the end of an old grade and walked out a short way to look at the river.
A bald eagle sat in a snag at the head of a long, slow drift, staring down between his feet. A king salmon rolled like a small torpedo half out of the river. When the kings run upriver in the fall, the rest of the fish, the Coho, steelhead and sea run Cutthroat and Dolly Varden run with them. I just call them all blue backs to avoid confusion. I figured if I set up my tent quickly I could catch a nice salmon before dark. I went to work setting up a fish camp with all the trimmings.
Nothing beats a bough bed for comfort in the wilderness. Constructed properly, a bough bed is sturdy yet springy and it smells terrific. Next to sleeping, eating seems to be the nest most popular camp activity. It helps to have a well organized folding camp kitchen. There are many fine ones on the market. I found a wire rope spool sitting on the landing of an old logging show, set a gas stove and some boxes on top and that was the kitchen.
Once I rigged the camp kitchen I started on the restroom facilities. Latrine placement is crucial on a dark and stormy night. It should be waterproof with a door snug enough to keep the skunks out. They don’t like to be surprised.
The camp was in the middle of a small grove of second growth timber. Within the grove was a dark hulk of a monolithic spruce stump more than a dozen feet high and at least eight feet in diameter.
The Olympic Peninsula rainforest grows the biggest spruce trees in the world. Spruce was used for building airplanes back in WWI. Only the best trees with clear wood and straight grain were used.
That was hand logging at its finest. The fallers climbed up the massive spruce by standing on spring boards, planks set in notches chipped in the side of the tree to cut the giant down with nothing but axes and a crosscut saw.
Hoh River in the Fall
The stump was more than a historic monument it a perfect back wall to my camp. I rigged a pole from the stump to the tent and lashed on a tarp. By the time I got things set up it was too dark to fish. I heard splashing down at the river. It could have been elk or fish. Whatever it was I was camped in the right place. I started a small campfire. After a while a small root attached to the stump caught fire. I thought that was good luck. It would save packing wood. I built up the fire to a cheery blaze.
As the flames climbed higher, the surface of the stump appeared moist. I thought it was wet from rain but I was wrong. The moisture was melting pitch running down the stump. Suddenly, the melted pitch caught on fire. In just a few minutes the entire stump erupted into a wall of flames. It showered my tent with a blizzard of cinders. In no time the stump looked like a rocket stuck in the ground.
Daylight revealed a scene of awesome devastation. There was a smoking crater where the spruce stump had been and a melted outhouse. Some nosey fishermen stopped by and wanted to know what happened.
“There is only one explanation,” I said. “Alien abduction!”