Qualla: Puget Sound

Puget Sound: Introduction

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gerode, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, Puget Sound looks like the earth cracked open and the sea rushed in - which is essentially what happened. Glaciers carved this 100-mile-long fjord system 14,000 years ago, scooping out channels hundreds of feet deep, leaving behind a maze of islands, peninsulas, and protected harbors. Today the Salish Sea - as the waters from the Strait of Juan de Fuca through Puget Sound are now officially known - remains the watery heart of the Pacific Northwest, home to 4 million people, a fleet of ferries, resident orca pods, and a culture shaped as much by water as by land.

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Image: Gerode | CC BY-SA 4.0

Puget Sound: The Mosquito Fleet's Legacy

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ricardo Martins from Gent, Belgium, CC BY 2.0. Before highways, before bridges, there were boats. For thousands of years, the Suquamish and other Coast Salish peoples navigated these waters in cedar canoes. When settlers arrived, they too turned to the water, creating the 'Mosquito Fleet' - scores of small steamers that buzze...

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Image: Ricardo Martins from Gent, Belgium | CC BY 2.0

Puget Sound: Mountains and Water

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ron Clausen, CC BY-SA 4.0. The geography of Puget Sound is defined by what rises around it. To the west, the Olympic Mountains catch Pacific storms and wring them dry, creating rainforests on their western slopes and the Olympic rain shadow on their eastern. To the east, the Cascades form a volcanic wall, ...

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Image: Ron Clausen | CC BY-SA 4.0

Puget Sound: Creatures of the Deep

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mrkoww, CC BY 4.0. Puget Sound teems with life in ways that surprise visitors accustomed to the emptiness of open ocean. Giant Pacific octopus hide in rocky crevices, intelligent enough to recognize individual divers. Wolf eels peer from dens with faces only a mother could love. Bald eagles wheel o...

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Image: Mrkoww | CC BY 4.0

Puget Sound: Island Hopping

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Iwanafish, Public domain. The Sound contains hundreds of islands, from major population centers like Bainbridge to uninhabited rocks visible only at low tide. Some, like Blake Island - birthplace of Chief Seattle - are accessible only by boat. Others, like Whidbey and Camano, connect to the mainland by br...

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Image: Iwanafish | Public domain