About

Cannon Beach is, without a doubt, one of the most scenic & spectacular beaches of the Pacific Northwest. Home to Haystack Rock, puffins, pelicans, cormorants, sealife, stunning vistas, Chapman Point, Ecola Park, Elk Creek and many other local nature attractions. Nestled between Seaside and Manzanita, you can find Cannon Beach on Highway 101 about a half-hour south of Astoria through Seaside. If you’re driving from California or, “the South”, then Arch Cape and Cannon Beach are about 20 minutes north of Manzanita, Oregon.

Prior to the early 1800’s, Cannon Beach was primarily used by the Tillamook (Nehalem) Indians for social, cultural & recreational activities; hunting, fishing, watching sunsets, walks on the beach, ceremonies of a spiritual nature and just plain having fun with all the resources at their disposal.

In December of 1805 two members of the Lewis & Clark Expedition had returned to their Fort Clatsop camp with Blue Whale blubber that they’d found at a beach “…several miles to the south…”.

In 1806 the first recorded European American journey to the area was made by William Clark, formerly of Lewis & Clark Expedition fame. Mr. Clark and a team of about 14 others from their Fort Clatsop base had travelled to Cannon Beach to stock up on their supplies of whale blubber for winter. By all accounts, on their arrival at Cannon Beach, Clark, Sacagawea, and the others found a cleansed, 105-foot Blue Whale skeleton with, amongst other things, the Tillamook Indians nearby boiling up the blubber for winter heat, oil and storage. Clark and his party bartered for 300 pounds of blubber and some whale oil and returned to Fort Clatsop.

Being based further North and closer to the mouth of the Columbia River, Mr. Clark and his team would have to journey over the “…the steepest worst and highest mountain I ever ascended …” and then from somewhere near Indian Point at the Northeastern part of Ecola Park, Mr. Clark’s journey log continues, I saw “…the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed, in front of a boundless ocean ….”

The location of this breathtaking vista is now called Clark’s Point and can be accessed via the Indian Beach hiking trails in Ecola Park.

Cannon Beach was named for a schooner ship's cannon that was discovered just off Haystack Rock in 1846. The U.S. Navy schooner Shark was broken up on the rocky shores while trying to leave the Columbia River. A large piece of the schooner's deck, with the cannon still intact, washed up on to Cannon Beach. The name of the town is based on this event.