Tamanowas Rock ( clm, t̕əménəwəs) (also spelled Tamanous), also called Chimacum Rock, is a high rock with caves and crevices that lies in a forest adjacent to

Anderson Lake State Park Anderson Lake State Park is a public recreation area on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington. The state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "s ...

, near

Port Townsend, Washington Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,148 at the 2020 United States Census. It is the county seat and only incorporated city of Jefferson County. In addition to ...

. It is a sacred site to the

Coast Salish peoples The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coa ...

of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

and a pilgrimage site. The rock was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2015..

History

Tamanowas Rock is said to have first been used 10,000 years ago by the

Chimakum The Chimakum, also spelled Chemakum and Chimacum are a near extinct Native American people (known to themselves as Aqokúlo and sometimes called the Port Townsend Indians), who lived in the northeastern portion of the Olympic Peninsula in Washin ...

(or Chemacum) people,leading to its alternate name "Chimacum Rock", whose name is also found in other local geographic features. In accordance with legend, it may have been used as a refuge from the tsunami caused by the

1700 Cascadia earthquake The 1700 Cascadia earthquake occurred along the Cascadia subduction zone on January 26, 1700, with an estimated moment magnitude of 8.7–9.2. The megathrust earthquake involved the Juan de Fuca Plate from mid-Vancouver Island, south along the P ...

, and earlier as a lookout for hunting now-extinct

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...

. "Tamanowas" means " spirit power" in the

Klallam language Klallam, Clallam, Ns'Klallam or S'klallam (endonym: Nəxʷsƛ̓ay̓əmúcən), is a Straits Salishan language that was traditionally spoken by the Klallam peoples at Becher Bay on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and across the Strait of Juan ...

Preservation

The site is either a registered archaeological site, or nominated to become one with the Washington State Department of Archaeology. In 2013, the rock was purchased with of surrounding land by the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe for preservation, at the end of a series of loans and purchases by organizations including

Washington State Parks The Washington State Park System is a set of State park, state parks owned by the state government of Washington (state), Washington, United States, USA. They are managed by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. There are over 140 ...

Bullitt Foundation The Bullitt Foundation is a foundation established in 1952 by Dorothy S. Bullitt, a prominent Seattle businesswoman and philanthropist who founded King Broadcasting Company in Seattle. Its assets as of the end of 2010 were in excess of US$100M. ...

and Jefferson Land Trust, that started in 2009. The land was added to an existing 22-acre purchase by the tribe. Prior to this, it was a rock climbing site, a practice which was ended when the S'Klallam Tribe took ownership.

Desecration

In 2014, the rock was desecrated with graffiti, gaining national and international attention.

Geology

The mineral composition is Eocene

subaerial In natural science, subaerial (literally "under the air"), has been used since 1833,Subaerial
in the Merriam ...

adakitic lava and lava

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...

. Dikes of similar composition exist in the Blue Hills near Bremerton 60 km away, both thought to be created by subduction of the

Kula-Farallon Ridge The Kula-Farallon Ridge was an ancient mid-ocean ridge that existed between the Kula and Farallon plates in the Pacific Ocean during the Jurassic period. There was a small piece of this ridge off the Pacific Northwest 43 million years ago. The r ...

beneath North America. They may be related by being part of a

magmatic arc Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also been discovered on other terrestrial planets and some natural sa ...

, they may be two isolated volcanic centers, or they may have been created at a single center and displaced along a fault (see

Puget Sound faults File:Puget Sound faults.png, upright=1.34, The principal Puget Sound faults (approximate location of known extents) and other selected peripheral and minor faults. Southern tip of Vancouver Island and San Juan Islands at top left (faults not show ...

References

External links