Chinook, WA

Chinook is a Pacific County community on Baker Bay, tucked behind Cape Disappointment where the Columbia River opens toward the Pacific. The bay and river tell most of the story. Chinook was the site of the county's first court in 1853 and first salmon cannery in 1870, and the fishery made the place wealthy enough to be known as a serious port town. Fish traps once lined the lower Columbia; when Washington voters outlawed them in 1934, Chinook lost a major part of the local business pattern, though fishing and harbor work continued.

The Port of Chinook was established in 1951 to serve boats working the river and the ocean, and it remains the practical side of the town's water identity. The Chinook Historical Fish Hatchery, Washington's oldest salmon hatchery, keeps that fish story visible, while nearby Fort Columbia and Lewis and Clark sites add older layers to the peninsula. Chinook is small, but its map is not small: Baker Bay, the Columbia, the ocean entrance, the Astoria-Megler Bridge, fishing boats, hatchery work, and the Chinook Indian Nation all meet at this bend of the coast.