Skagit Bay is a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

and

strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean chan ...

located in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It is part of the Whidbey Island Basin of

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected m ...

. The

Skagit River The Skagit River ( ) is a river in southwestern British Columbia in Canada and northwestern Washington in the United States, approximately 150 mi (240 km) long. The river and its tributaries drain an area of 1.7 million acres (690,000& ...

empties into Skagit Bay. To the south, Skagit Bay connects with the rest of Puget Sound via Saratoga Passage and Possession Sound. The boundary between Saratoga Passage and Skagit Bay is between Polnell Point on

Whidbey Island Whidbey Island (historical spellings Whidby, Whitbey, or Whitby) is the largest of the islands composing Island County, Washington, in the United States, and the largest island in Washington State. (The other large island is Camano Island, ...

and Rocky Point on Camano Island. To the northwest, Skagit Bay connects to the Strait of Juan de Fuca via the narrow strait of Deception Pass. A third waterway, the Swinomish Channel, connects Skagit Bay with Padilla Bay to the north. Skagit Bay is bounded by Whidbey Island to the west, Fidalgo Island to the north, Camano Island to the south, and the mainland to the east. The mainland coast consists almost entirely of the Skagit River delta, including Fir Island, between the North Fork and South Fork distributaries of the Skagit River. The northern end of Skagit Bay is called Similk Bay. Two islands at the northern end, Hope and Skagit islands, have been designated as marine state parks. The

Swinomish Indian Reservation The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, also known as the Swinomish Tribe, is a federally recognized Tribe located on Puget Sound in Washington.Swinomish Channel. Skagit Bay 6310

History

The bay is in an area occupied for thousands of years by various cultures of

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. They made use of the bay to gather fish and shellfish, integral to their diets. Members of the 1792 Vancouver Expedition were the first non-indigenous people recorded as having come upon and explored Skagit Bay. On May 30, 1792, Joseph Whidbey led a boat survey team up Saratoga Passage and into Skagit Bay. They spent a day surveying but did not see Deception Pass, and concluded that Skagit Bay was closed. The next day

George Vancouver Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are ...

noted the swampy waterway connecting Port Susan to Skagit Bay at the north end of Camano Island. Later, on June 7, Vancouver's ships passed by Deception Pass from the west. Peter Puget and Joseph Whidbey took boats to investigate the opening and found it connected to Skagit Bay, thus they realized the land (to be known as Whidbey Island) comprised an island rather than a peninsula.

References

* * Bays of Washington (state) Bays of Island County, Washington Bodies of water of Skagit County, Washington Bodies of water of Snohomish County, Washington Straits of Washington (state) Landforms of Puget Sound Estuaries of Washington (state) {{SnohomishCountyWA-geo-stub