SUMMER GLAMP
ON THE FJORD
A LEGACY OF HOSPITALITY CONTINUES AT
Bertha & Colbein John Sund
SUND ROCK
(Mason County Historical Society)
The shores of Hood Canal are scattered with oyster shells and the memories of generations of homesteaders imprinted in the coves and creeks along its banks. It hasn’t always been that way. Not so terribly long ago there were no oyster shells to be found on most of the Fjord’s banks. The fragile native oyster, Olympia, was unable to withstand the drying out of the steep rocky shores of the canal when the tides receded, preferring instead the quiet muddy bars of the inlets in the inner Puget Sound. However, like most tales of adventure, there is a hero. The story goes that Colbein John Sund, a young seafarer (22) staked his homestead claim on Hood Canal in 1888, ten months before Washington became a state. Sund was the fifth in the order of seven children in Norway, with the oldest getting the family farm, the other children were left to go to sea or be fisherman. Adventure seized the interest of Sund, and, at the age of 19, he signed on for a return trip to America from Norway. He returned to Norway as promised in his sailing contract, but on his second journey, he decided to make it one way and stay on the Pacific Coast.
The lumber industry was booming between San Francisco and Seattle, Colbein John Sund had no trouble finding a position as an officer tending the sails on one of these schooners. It was while sailing through Puget Sound and seeing the narrow inlet of Hood Canal that he was reminded of the fjords at home in Norway. He explored the shores of Hood Canal in a small sailboat and found an abandoned trapper’s log cabin, lacking a roof, near two streams in a quiet valley. He decided that this was the perfect place to start his family’s history on Hood Canal.
FJORD
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Sund's early resort featured platform tents (Mason County Historical Society)
Sund had no idea that his decision would help to shape the path of Hood Canal. On that very special and remarkable point lies the present day marine preserve beloved by scuba divers, Sund Rock. The land at the foot of the Olympic range, between two perennial streams where he replaced the roof of the dilapidated cabin and subsequently built Sund Resort with his wife is still a Hood Canal resort today. It is here too, that his son Abner, brought the first Pacific oysters to the Hood Canal shores, and his grandson, Robert, eventually managed to establish the marine preserve, Sund Rock, famous for its giant ling cod, Great Pacific Octopus and wolf eels.
