Circumnavigating the Island on a History Museum Tour, Provides a Great Perspective on Bainbridge’s Many Fascinating Places

We can’t think of a better way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon than motoring around Bainbridge Island on an Argosy cruise boat.

Thanks to the Bainbridge History Museum, we and more than 130-plus other folks, hopped aboard the Goodtime II, and, well, had a good time seeing the island’s many impressive homes, waterways, coves and beaches, all the while listening to an upbeat narration by author, naturalist, and tour guide, David B. Williams, who offered participants a deeper understanding of the island’s human and natural history.

His award-winning book, “Home waters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound,” serves as the inspiration for his narratives, which are both witty and deeply informed. Most people aboard would likely agree that Williams hit the mark.

Seeing the island from the water gives you a wholly different perspective on its size and shape, and looking at it from the boat, it’s hard to imagine there are 25,000-plus people living there. What was truly impressive about our voyage was the number of Steamer (steam powered boats) Landings on Bainbridge in the early 1900s.

Remnants of some are still visible, others have long since deteriorated, and have either been replaced, or succumbed to the vestiges of time. But interestingly, what remains of most of these landings are the place names – familiar to most islanders.

We’re talking Winslow, Wing Point, Port Madison, Fort Ward and the like. There were 28 landings in all – many of them were later part of the famed Mosquito Fleet – serving Bainbridge residents for more than 155 years. The island’s first regular steamboat service started in 1869, sailing between Port Madison and Seattle.

We started our circumnavigation of the island from Eagle Harbor, where today locals, commuters and tourists ply to and fro from Bainbridge to Seattle aboard a Washington State Ferry. Our boat meandered out into the bay, and Williams explained the origins of names like Puget Sound, named after an officer on Captain George Vancouver’s staff who took three boats and sailed south from Bainbridge towards what eventually became known as Mount Rainier.

Williams explained that the British knew that the natives – in our case the Suquamish – had their own names for these seas, mountains, and islands, but they wanted to claim them for the Motherland and thus used English titles to do so.

He talked a lot about the natural history of the region, including the infamous Seattle Fault that runs right through the heart of Bainbridge. The earthquake that knocked down huge stands of trees on the banks of Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish, the remnants of which are still underwater. And, perhaps just as interesting but lesser known, another earthquake that struck off the coast of Washington in the 17^th century (or was it earlier) that sent a massive tsunami to faraway Japan.

The depth of Puget Sound’s waters, Williams pointed out, fall to nearly 1,000 feet in places, much deeper than the San Francisco and Chesapeake bays, which are larger in area but not in water volume.

OK, back to our tour. As we skirted north, we went by Wing Point, which, of course, juts out like a wing of a bird (perhaps an Eagle). The dock there was built in 1905 to serve the active summer community. A group of residents back then started playing golf among the fruit trees, and by 1916, a six-hole course was created. Today, it’s the home of the 18-hole Wing Point Golf & Country Club, and surrounding community of beautiful homes.

As we sailed north, we passed Yeomalt Point, a Suquamish name that roughly translates into a place “where the winds gather.” From 1912 to 1930, a YWCA camp was located near the point, giving young girls of the time access to a beautiful beach front, with the far-off Seattle skyline, sans any high rises at the time, in the distance.

Down the sound, we chugged past Ferncliff, Manitou, and Manitou Park, where in 1909 a hotel and cabins were built on Skiff Point. Not long after Frank Moran started his school for boys in the hotel and later built three large stucco buildings. The school closed in 1933 but reopened a few years later as the Puget Sound Naval Academy as was operational until 1951. It later became a nursing home as now part of the modern day Fieldstone Retirement Community.

Steaming along (OK, we were in a gas-powered vessel, but play along with me here!), we passed Rolling Bay, La View, just south Fay Bainbridge Park and sailed into Port Madison Bay. From 1854 to the 1890s, Port Madison was home to George Meigs’ sawmill – one of the world’s biggest back then – and many other business ventures. At one time, little ole’ Port Madison had more people than the then “village” of Seattle. Later it became the county seat of what eventually became our familiar Kitsap County.

We then wound around Agate Point and took in the view of the nearly historic Agate Pass Bridge that was built circa 1951 and connected Bainbridge to the Kitsap Peninsula, making the island not quite an island any longer.

While Williams provided more interesting natural history info, we steamed past Seabold, north Seabold and Manzanita, and then glimpsed a view of what was once area called Venice. That’s right, Bainbridge had its own Venice, without the canals. Venice was the name of a dock – at 780 the longest in the Sound at the time – that was originally built in 1908 and led summertime visitors to what is now Battle Point Park where there were rustic cabins and platform tents. Over time, the dock was destroyed by storm damage and disappeared in 1933.

As we sailed along, we passed Fletcher Bay, Westwood, Gibson’s Landing, near the homestead of legendary Bainbridge politician Ralph Munro and adjacent to the still standing Point White Ferry Dock. Around the bend, we passed Pleasant Beach, Fort Ward, South Beach, before coming nearly cheek by jowl with the Country Club.

According to historic accounts, the Suquamish people camped on this point and greeted Captain George Vancouver as he waded ashore in 1792. A summer retreat in 1891 for sailing Seattleites, the Country Club grew from rustic lodgings to the magnificent homes that now line the hillside. There’s even a small golf course on the property with sand “greens” and a saltwater pool. The dock there was built in 1892 and small ferries served the point until 1937.

We wound up our voyage passing Port Blakely, where another huge sawmill once existed, Parker’s Landing and Creosote before re-entering Eagle Harbor and tying up at the Public Dock. Bainbridge Island is filled with fascinating historical tidbits and if you want to learn more, check out the Bainbridge History Museum website, Bainbridge History Museum

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