Oyster Blog — News from Here

Spring is taking its sweet time getting here.

Hood Canal, circa 2008. The near dot in the picture is a seal, the far dot is a boat. In the mid 1800s, before Washington was a state, civic minded leaders in the territory decided that they needed to do something to distinguish their homeland and themselves. People on the East Coast still thought of the Washington residents as wild, wooley and completely uncivilized. One astute resident of Union City, Washington, a Mr. Samuel Hood, who'd made a fortune in the shipping industry, took a vacation to New York in 1852 and noticed the considerable fanfare and wealth generated by...

There are two types of oyster eater: those who are born loving oysters, and those who grow into the taste. For one local dog, the oyster epiphany came last Saturday at an informal campfire gathering in Lilliwaup. Since puppyhood Area Dog has lived on Hood Canal, but this was the first time he'd expressed interest in oysters. (Caveat: only in Lilliwaup, where the hens lay soft-boiled eggs and the lemonade springs, would it be o.k. to feed world-class shellfish to a dog.)   Area Dog signals interest in oyster... gets ignored... and then finds the stash. Would somebody please just...

Long Live the Kings, a non-profit group working to restore native salmon populations, has just completed a 12-year steelhead restoration program on the Hamma Hamma River. The project has gotten great coverage from the Kitsap Sun, check it out here. The really exciting thing about LLTK is that they've developed and implemented a hatchery system that preserves the genetic diversity of the wild fish populations. They take a small number of eggs out of the redds (or nests) produced by native, wild fish, then hatch the eggs in a hatchery and raise the fish for 4 to 5 years before...

Here are some introductory photos. Most of these (all of the really good ones!) were taken by Paul Harper. This photo was taken just north of the shucking plant, looking up the Hamma Hamma River valley towards the Olympics. Seattleites may recognize the mountain in this picture... The Brothers is one of the most prominent Olympic Peaks as seen from the Pike Place Market area. In the shadows of the lower left corner in this photo you can see the southern bridge across the Hamma Hamma river. But in case your eyesight is bad, here's a closeup of one of...