Cannon Beach

The coast here was home to the Tillamook people, whose villages included the site later called Indian Beach in what is now Ecola State Park. In the winter of 1805–06 the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped at Fort Clatsop, about 20 miles to the north, and in December two of its men came back with blubber from a whale stranded near the mouth of the creek. In January 1806 William Clark, with Sacagawea and others, made a three-day journey to the whale, bartered with the Tillamook for 300 pounds of blubber and some oil, and from a headland described "the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed". He named the creek Ekoli, a Chinook Jargon word for whale.

In 1846 the US Navy schooner Shark was wrecked on the Columbia Bar, and a carronade from it washed ashore just north of Arch Cape. Settlers renamed the creek Elk Creek, and a small community of the same name grew up beside it. The cannon was rediscovered in 1898 and eventually inspired a new name: in 1922 the Post Office, which kept confusing Elk Creek with Eola, had it renamed Cannon Beach, after the eight-mile beach. The creek took back Clark's name as Ecola Creek. The cannon is kept in the town's museum, and two more believed to be from the Shark were found at Arch Cape in 2008.

In 1964 a tsunami from the Good Friday earthquake in Alaska flooded parts of the town and washed away the highway bridge to the north. Highway 101, which once ran through the town, no longer does, and Cannon Beach grew into a weekend resort for Portland.

Cannon Beach has made itself into an arts town. Galleries showing the work of local and Northwest artists line the main street, and the year is framed by two gallery festivals: Spring Unveiling on the first Sunday of May and the Stormy Weather Arts Festival in November, which ends with an auction. The town has long discouraged chain shops such as supermarkets and fast-food outlets to protect its small-town character.

Haystack Rock is the town's symbol and a protected place. It belongs to the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge, events are not allowed close to it, and a city-run awareness programme holds educational sessions at the rock at low tide between February and October, explaining the tide pools and the birds — guillemots, murres, oystercatchers and tufted puffins.

The coast is also a film location. Scenes from The Goonies, Kindergarten Cop, Point Break, Free Willy and Twilight were shot on the beach or in Ecola State Park. A whale sculpture at the north end of Hemlock Street marks the meeting between Clark's party and the Tillamook.

Cannon Beach had 1,489 people at the 2020 census, in a town of about one and a half square miles. Its median age was 53.2, and about a third of residents were 65 or older. Many houses are second homes or holiday rentals, so the population swells far beyond that on summer weekends.

Tourism is almost the whole economy: hotels, rentals, restaurants, galleries and the shops of Hemlock Street, which runs the length of the town from the north end to Tolovana Park. The town is particularly popular with Portlanders as a weekend getaway.

The rhythm of life follows the seasons and the tides. Summer brings crowds, festivals and families on the sand; low tides draw people out to Haystack Rock at any hour; winter is quiet, wet and stormy. Living with the risk of a Cascadia earthquake and tsunami is part of local life, and evacuation routes are signposted through the town.

Food here is coastal Oregon cooking: clam chowder, fish and chips, Dungeness crab, oysters and razor clams dug from the region's beaches, and salmon from the Pacific. Restaurants and cafés cluster on Hemlock Street downtown, alongside bakeries, sweet shops and ice cream counters that cater to families walking up from the beach.

The wider north coast supplies much of what is served. Tillamook, to the south, is known for its cheddar and ice cream, and Oregon's berries and hazelnuts appear in pies and pastries. Pubs and small breweries serve regional beer, and Willamette Valley Pinot Noir is on most wine lists.

Eating here is shaped by the tides and the weather as much as by the menu. On fine days people buy chowder, fish and chips or ice cream to take down to the sand, and the state parks along the coast have picnic areas; on wet winter days the cafés and pubs fill with people sheltering from the rain and watching the storms over Haystack Rock. Self-catering is common, since so many visitors stay in rented houses with kitchens.