National Geographic : 1961 Nov
transferred the specimens to a bucket and carried them back to the sea. They were none the worse, as far as I could see, for their week's contact with the human species. Driving on up the coast, we soon came to another beach where the interest was not only biological, but historical as well. Beached Whale Made Oregon History "Ocian in view! O! the joy," wrote Capt. William Clark in his notebook on November 7, 1805. After 18 months of slugging it out with hostile prairies, mountains, and wilder ness, he and Meriwether Lewis had at last brought their expedition to the Pacific coast, near the mouth of a mighty river known as the Columbia.* They spent the following winter in what is now Clatsop, the Oregon coast's most north erly county. They collected salt by boiling sea water, and hunted for sorely needed fats. Rumors of a stranded whale lured some of the group 18 miles south of their winter quar ters at Fort Clatsop. There, on a broad beach, they found the whale-its 105-foot carcass, that is-freshly stripped of blubber by Tillamook Indians. The expedition was able to barter for a few gallons of precious whale oil, but complained that the Indians charged an exorbitantly high price. Captain Clark was nevertheless grate ful to Providence for ". . . having Sent this Monster to be Swallowed by us in Sted of Swallowing of us as jonah's did." We visited the whale site, now known as Cannon Beach, on a Sunday afternoon. Eas ing our car out of a steady stream of surf side traffic, we parked within the shadow of an enormous monolith known as Haystack Rock. A landmark of the Oregon coast, it thrusts 235 feet above the surf (preceding page). Around its base, now partially exposed at low tide, swarmed scores of holiday biol ogists, many of them weekenders from Port land, only a 90-minute drive away. *See "Following the Trail of Lewis and Clark," by Ralph Gray, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, June, 1953.