The farm has been zoned agricultural for many years with many incarnations. It’s been a cranberry farm, it’s had cattle, and was the rhododendron nursery for over sixty years. Coast Seafoods still farms oysters and manila clams in the bay off the property, and it was homesteaded in the Oregon Territory days, then again in early statehood days. (My family settled pre-statehood in Washington, in Bickelton, Klickitat County.) I’ve been told the cousins of the owner of the Ilwaco Coffee Company are descendants of the early Washington State homesteaders who lived here.

When I first stepped on the property, I was struck by all the broken clam shells on the driveway, dropped by smart, hungry crows who would eat the tasty morsels inside. Originally, I wanted the name of the farm to be “Crows Dropping Shells” in the Chinook language, but that beautiful language is difficult for most to spell and pronounce, so with reluctance, I headed in another direction. Because of its amazing history, it has been named, for now, the Willapa Bay “Heritage” Farm. (Likely to morph some day soon to the Willapa Bay “Educational” Farm, as that is more reflective of what it is today.)

Whatever it may be called, I am but the caretaker and steward for this instantiation of the farm, with its long heritage stretching from prehistoric times up through the Chinook nation, whose people had aquaculture beds and grew maize, on to the present day. Hopefully into the future, however uncertain it looks right now.