In the 1850s, the first photographers began capturing scenes of life on Puget Sound. They positioned their heavy cameras with glass plate negatives on whatever stable platform they could find, frequently a wharf or pier. The images celebrated the pride of Puget Sound, its ships, homes, businesses, and industries.

Have you seen the phantom ship Valencia plying the waters of Puget Sound? Seen the ghostly lady still waiting at the Point Wilson lighthouse for her long-drowned daughter to return? Felt the soggy spider webs of a spirit aboard your own boat?
In the spirit of Halloween, Three Sheets Northwest asked Kirkland-based folklorist and writer Margaret Read MacDonald [...]

Port Townsend shares a rich maritime history with other towns around the country that once prospered as vibrant, bustling seaports.
But unlike most of those places, where real maritime activity has been replaced with nautical-themed tourism, Port Townsend still derives a significant chunk of its revenue from maritime trades. In recognition of that ongoing tradition, “working waterfront” [...]

The Northwest lost one of its most prolific and respected boat builders and designers with the death last week of Norm Blanchard.
Blanchard died July 9. He was 98.
Blanchard was the son of Norman J. Blanchard, who founded the Blanchard Boat Company. He inherited both his father’s name and his talent and passion for boat building, [...]

The crowds turned out on an unusually hot Fourth of July weekend to tour classic wooden schooners, make toy boats, listen to live music and get out on the water for some welcome breezes during the 33rd annual Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival Saturday and Sunday.
Up to 20,000 people were expected to attend the event, [...]

Lee Knudsen might have shaken his head and laughed at the sign announcing a liquidation sale at Doc Freeman’s in 2003. Over a half-century, Knudsen, his dad and Doc himself had built the store’s reputation for having any part for anything that floated. Read on for the sad tale of this historic store’s decline[...]

MEYDENBAUER BAY–In the decades between the world wars, seven steam-powered boats, their high bows weighted with harpoon cannon, rode out winters tied two and three deep to a lonely wooden pier that reached into Meydenbauer Bay.
No one could have known it at the time, but Bellevue’s quiet, crook-fingered bay on Lake Washington was where the [...]