The Cape Flattery Tribal Scenic Byway The first Native American scenic byway in the United States begins on a winding coastal Olympic Peninsula road abutting the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Salish Sea’s outlet to the Pacific Ocean. Created by a 2002 agreement between the Makah Tribe, who has inhabited the land since time immemorial, and the Washington State Transportation Commission, the final 12 miles of SR 112 located on Makah land is known as the Cape Flattery Tribal Scenic Byway. Beginning at the entrance to the Makah Reservation, the road winds through the town of Neah Bay and ends at a parking lot for Cape Flattery Trail, the northwestern point of the lower 48. While the byway offers jaw-dropping landscape, the journey also encourages an understanding of the Makah people, a Washington tribe whose history and culture are shaped by a rugged marine coastline, whaling and fishing traditions guaranteed by an 1855 treaty, and the 1970 unearthing of one of the tribe’s traditional villages. The excavation of Ozette village redefined both state archaeology and tribal rights. On the route’s front porch there is a pullout at the reservation entrance sign where a break in the treeline offers STATE ROAD
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3rd Act magazine | fall 2022
Travel the country’s first Native American scenic byway STORY AND PHOTOS BY ANN RANDALL
a view of Sail and Seal Rocks. The two offshore features in the Strait of Juan de Fuca are popular feeding grounds for juvenile gray whales and sea lions that sun themselves on the rock perches. Neah Bay is home to the renowned Museum at the Makah Culture and Research Center. It’s worth devoting a couple of hours to wander the thoughtfully curated introduction to the land, history, and culture of the Makah. Designed by tribal members and an internationally recognized museum architect, the facility serves multiple purposes. It was built to house artifacts from Ozette, some more than 2,000 years old. Located on a beach 15 miles south of Neah Bay, Ozette was buried under a mudslide until exposed by tidal erosion in 1970. Eleven years of excavation by the tribe and archaeologists from Washington State University recovered more than 55,000 artifacts, many of them perfectly preserved, with 500 of them displayed at the museum, and the rest in the museum’s repository. Additionally, the museum www.3rdActMag.com