Qualla: Clo-oose

Clo-oose: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1913, the West Coast Development Company of Victoria printed a pamphlet advertising Clo-oose as a future oceanfront resort. The brochure promised a large hotel, golf links, tennis courts, a seaside boardwalk, and mineral springs rivaling Banff's. It described the location as an easy distance from Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle -- omitting the qualification "as the crow flies." Some of the waterfront properties for sale lacked ocean views. Others were landlocked. A few were below the high-water mark. The Cheewhat River, touted as a bathing amenity, is tidal, cold, and salty. The mineral springs did not exist. World War I scuttled the project, and Clo-oose returned to what it had always been: a remote, wind-blasted beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the forest meets the sea and almost nothing goes as planned.

Read more: Clo-oose on Qualla

Clo-oose: The Landing Place

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The name Clo-oose comes from the Nuu-chah-nulth language -- tluu7uus -- and means camping beach or landing place. The Ditidaht First Nation, whose traditional territory encompasses this coast, used Clo-oose as a stopping point during canoe travel between their main villages: Whya...

Read more: Clo-oose on Qualla

Clo-oose: Groves, Logan, and the Rum Runners

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Europeans had visited the coast since the maritime fur trade of the 1700s, but the first settler was G.F. Groves, who purchased land on the Cheewhat River in 1892, raised cattle, and ran a trading post. In 1894, he persuaded David and Sarah Logan to manage the operation while he ...

Read more: Clo-oose on Qualla

Clo-oose: Shipwrecks and the Lifesaving Trail

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The waters off Clo-oose belong to the Graveyard of the Pacific. In 1906, the barkentine Skagit wrecked on a reef to the northwest, killing two. Earlier that same year, the SS Valencia sank 17 kilometers up the coast with the loss of more than 125 lives, a disaster so devastating ...

Read more: Clo-oose on Qualla

Clo-oose: What the Forest Took Back

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the steamboat stopped coming in 1952, Clo-oose's decline was swift and final. Without road access, only a missionary and a telegraph linesman remained, though the Ordway family arrived in 1953 and stayed on. Helen Dorothy Ordway ran a teahouse for hikers in the 1960s and se...

Read more: Clo-oose on Qualla