Smallpox Bay Anchorage

Only a day anchorage...Nothing to see, private beach...you can just putt by and see. The native people of the Pacific Northwest were unique among cultures in that they developed a complex stratified society without ever developing agriculture. They built their wealth on the bounty of nature that surrounded them. They supported a noble class, sophisticated arts, theatre, and system of cosmology on an economy based on salmon, shellfish, cedar, camas root and berries. The inland seaways were their highways and through trade added obsidian, jet & shell beads and amber to their wealth. The misnomer that there was not much going on here before Europeans arrived is not due simply to arrogance. To say that we were a plague upon their houses is the literal truth. It is estimated that as many as 90% of the native population was decimated by disease before settlers even began to arrive. Smallpox was the worst of these diseases. What European settlers found here were the remains of a society that had just collapsed. Smallpox Bay on San Juan Island is named for Native Americans who contracted smallpox and immersed themselves in the seawater to cool their fever. They died of hypothermia, drowning or the disease itself.