These Times

Let's take back Hood Canal!

Kirk Ericson | Jan 30, 20250

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A lone gull sits atop a post overlooking Hood Canal at Potlatch State Park.

English naval Capt. George Vancouver paid these parts a visit for a couple of months in the spring of 1792, and he had a lot to do - chart the depth of waters, survey, chronicle flora and fauna, maybe some rum, sodomy and the lash, and most permanently, slap names on geographical features.

"While in Puget Sound, Vancouver named 75 prominent features, from bays to mountains," according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. "Many of these remain to this day, including Admiralty Inlet, Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Port Townsend, Hood's Canal (today Hood Canal), Whidbey Island, Deception Pass and Vashon Island."

Some people in this country seem to be in a fresh mood to change names attached to geography, so can we add to the list the sea body we call Hood Canal?

Let's start with the obvious. Hood Canal is not a canal. A canal is "an artificial waterway for navigation or for draining or irrigating land," according to Merriam and Webster, two people who knew a thing or two about a thing or two. The Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Erie Canal and the Göta Canal are canals because they are waterways dug by humans.

Another aspect of a canal is it connects two or more navigable bodies of water. Hood Canal ends, as far as navigability is concerned, in the tidelands south of Belfair. Not. A. Canal.

Let us now consider the "Hood" part of Hood Canal.

Samuel Hood (1724-1816) was an admiral in England's Royal Navy who fought against our freedom-loving American forebears. Hood was also called Sir Samuel Hood and Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood. He was an exemplar of the in-bred and anti-democratic aristocracy that the colonialists fled, and fought and died to oppose.

In Hood's defense, he didn't fight our forebears too much or too well. One of his few fights in the Revolutionary War was in 1781 in the Battle of the Chesapeake, outside the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, a body of water that starts in Virginia and ends a couple of bloody land skirmishes away from Washington, D.C.

Most importantly, York-town was on Chesapeake Bay. Yorktown was where British Gen. Charles Cornwallis - the 1st Marquess Cornwallis - was dug in with his troops and in dire need of provisions and reinforcements. Our Adm. Hood was tasked with defeating a French fleet that stood between him and Cornwallis. Thanks to the French, Hood failed and Cornwallis was forced to surrender to Gen. George Washington, neither a viscount or a marquess. The loss at Yorktown effectively ended the war. All that was left was the paperwork.

So ... Hood Canal is not a canal and it was named after a member of the losing, opposing team. That's like naming a geographical feature after Denver's quarterback after he lost to the Seahawks in the 2014 Super Bowl.

Manning Pass, perhaps?

Changing geographical names should not be done willy-nilly, based on the whim of an aristocrat or a ship captain from the opposing team.

In Washington, the Committee on Geographic Names reviews proposals on name changes, and it's a long process to undertake before effecting a change. One way to start is to by getting a new name into common use. Changing Puget Sound is well on its way on the score. It's often referred to as the Salish Sea.

How about the Salish Fjord? The word "Salish" is well-known and "fjord" comes from the Norse word "fjorthr." "Fjord" is in common use AND it's an accurate discription of our offshoot of the Salish Sea. According to Merriam and Webster, again, a fjord is "a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes." That's what Hood Canal is.

And just as using the word "Salish" pays respect to the originals of this land, "fjord" pays respect to those who came much later. Hood Canal does neither.

"Immigrants from Nordic countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland – settled in large numbers in the Pacific Northwest in the late 19th century, drawn to a landscape of saltwater fjords, farmland, forests and mountains that reminded them of home," according to visitseattle.com. "By 1910, Scandinavians were the largest ethnic group in Washington state, comprising over 30 percent of the foreign-born population."

Compared to other troubles in this nation, changing the name of a body of water seems trival, but it is something that seems more achievable than other matters that need changing. We should seek victories where we can

If you're in favor of "Salish Fjord," or you have a better idea for a name, type "committee on geographic names" into your favorite search engine and fill out the form that's available.

Let's take back Hood Canal!