Graveyard of the Pacific

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The Graveyard of the Pacific is a nickname for a stretch of the coastal region in the Pacific Northwest, from Tillamook Bay on the Oregon Coast northward to the tip of Vancouver Island.^[1] The region's seas are frequently subject to heavy and unpredictable weather year round combined with the rugged, largely undeveloped coastline, especially along Vancouver Island and its northwestern tip at Cape Scott, causing sea conditions which endanger many marine vessels. More than 2000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost near the Columbia Bar alone.^[2] One book about regional wrecks lists 484 wrecks at the south and west sides of Vancouver Island.^[3]

Combinations of fog, wind, storm, current and wave have crashed hundreds of ships in the region by the middle of the twentieth century, including famous wrecks in regional history. Charts of the region show its famous, and dangerous, landmarks:

Columbia Bar: a giant sandbar at the mouth of the Columbia River
Cape Flattery
Reefs and rocks lining the west coast of Vancouver Island
Strait of Juan de Fuca

Shipwreck charts are studded with sites.^[4] Actual physical wreckage is minimal due to the violence of the wrecks and their age, despite the difficulty of access for salvagers.^[5]

The term is believed to have originated in the earliest days of the marine fur trade, not only as increasing numbers of traders' ships began to be wrecked, but also because of the ongoing state of incipient warfare that all ships had to be provided for in the region, which was considered one of the most dangerous and deadly regions to trade in the Pacific.

The rate of major wrecks has decreased considerably since the 1920s, but several lives are still lost each year.^[1]