Port Gamble
Today we wandered through pretty, little, historic Port Gamble, a restored logging town dating from the 1850s. Today, all that remains is small cluster of immaculate houses and tourist-oriented shops clustered near the mouth of the Hood Canal. It bustles on summer weekends with tourists, hosting events like art shows and renaissance festivals, but is much sleepier during the week and the rainy, gloomy winters.
Port Gamble’s historic wooden water towers.
Main Street Port Gamble.
The General Store – 95% gifts & museum and 5% actual general store items.
Each cottage and business is surrounded with gorgeous gardens – these, outside the general store, overlook the Hood Canal.
Panoramic view of the Hood Canal – click to enlarge.
My apologies for image quality – I neglected to bring my camera and these were taken with my BlackBerry.
September 14th, 2008
Nice photos, esp. for the BlackBerry–that panorama turned out very well, I think.
Are there still any real general stores left in America (aside from Wal-Mart, which shouldn’t count)? In Boone, the Mast General Store hasn’t been a real general store in my entire lifetime–like the Port Gamble general store, it’s about 95% touristy stuff: college sweatshirts and “mountain folk art” one suspects was made in Mexico.
Port Gamble, by the way, is one of the best names for a town I think I’ve ever heard. It could show up in a historical romance, a science fiction story, a soap opera, a western–it’s a name that conjures up every locale and genre I can imagine. Pirates are approaching Port Gamble as we speak, the orc army has surrounded Port Gamble, someone has died in idyllic Port Gamble and it’s a case for spinster-detective Miss Whatsit. We have enough antimatter to reach Port Gamble, a stranger with a gun on his hip and dust on his hat rides a pale horse into Port Gamble, strange lights have been seen in the hills over Port Gamble and children have started to disappear.
It makes you want to move there.