When the fog rolls in over the coastal forest we get a weak peek into the two years William Kobbe’ spent at Cape Disappointment.

I recently stumbled across a most rewarding piece of literature composed by a very lucky man. “The Rufous Hummingbirds of Cape Disappointment” was written by William H. Kobbe’, who’s father was the commanding officer of Fort Canby during the turn of the 19th century. Kobbe’ was fortunate enough to spend two years living at Cape Disappointment without a job so he spent his time bird watching. To our advantage more than one hundred years later, he not only identified the birds he saw, or frequently “bagged”, he also recorded the environment in which they were found. His observations paint us a picture of the cape and the surrounding area as being “an unbroken wilderness.” Certainly others before him had done the same, namely Captain William Clark in November of 1805, but there is something to be said for the length of time Kobbe’ was able to spend here, kicking around at his leisure.

From my understanding William Kobbe’ was not a scientist; he saw things with his limited education on his subject matter. Consequently, the descriptions that are included in his writings are easy to understand and appreciate by laymen like myself. We can picture what it would have been like to wander the old beaches and headlands before the cape was a state park, before the world wars, before automobiles and RVs. To share this vision of the past I’m sharing the following extended quotes from his hummingbird article which appeared in the 1900 edition of “The Auk,” a quarterly journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

Kobbe’ simply describes what he saw in 1898 and added some conjecture where his scientific knowledge was lacking. Speaking of the cape in admitted rough terms he wrote, “This cape is in the form of a crescent and extends about one mile into the ocean, thus enclosing a small bay on the side towards the river. The opposite side receives the full force of the Pacific and is cut by the action of the mighty waves into numerous beaches and rocky headlands. In fact, the entire aspect of the cape is very hilly. At one time, I imagine these hills formed the backbone of the cape, but they are now washed into cliffs on the ocean side and into precipitous slopes on the other. In one place the ocean seems to have broken through and connected with the bay during former centuries, thus forming a low tract or valley in the center of which a small lake has formed.”

When he wanted to capture the scenery of the forests on and near the cape, Kobbe’ used a description written by a R. H. Lawrence an ornithologist who had written a similar report on the birds of Grays Harbor, Washington. This may have shown a lack of confidence in Kobbe’s own ability to capture the conditions of the forest primeval. Maybe it’s a sign of his humility that he inserts the language of Lawrence, we’ll never know. Either way, the synopsis is a glimpse into the past and a precious one at that. “The entire cape is overgrown and where space has not been cleared by the government for a military settlement we find giant spruces and firs standing. Mr. R. H. Lawrence has described this country with such vividness that I cannot resist using his own words. He says, this whole region, “is densely covered with a heavy growth of large timber: fir, hemlock, spruce, and cedar. The firs and spruces grow to be giants: it is usual to see them from four to seven feet in diameter, and over two hundred feet high. Underneath these great trees is generally a thick growth of vine-maple, hemlock, large and small, alder, etc., the ground being a network of ferns, vines, bushes, and brush, with fallen giants here and there in all stages of decay. On all this much moss grows; and long festoons hang from the branches of the standing trees. Except in the few dry weeks of midsummer, the bushes and ferns are generally wet. With one’s face spattered with raindrops and cobwebs, and with an unsure footing, it is slow through such a tangle.” With the exception of the extreme end, the cape is thus an unbroken wilderness.

William Kobbe’ wrote another article for “The Auk” a couple of months later titled, “The Birds of Cape Disappointment.” I would like to share some of his findings with you in the future and we’ll get another glimpse into yesteryear, when the North Head Lighthouse was brand new, Fort Columbia was being built, the South Jetty was in the middle of it’s construction, and when flocks of Surf Scoters took flight, “the loud whistling of their rapid wing beats can be heard a long distance, a half mile or more if the weather is very calm.”