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E
GRAB BAG book shelf • glimpse • wildlife • pop culture • words • q&a
aster
W
orship
C elebrate w ith G race
the
Joy o f Easter
Easter Sunday
March 27th
8 am & 10 am
Photo by Matt Love
Grace Episcopal Church
SINCE
1886
Dock of the Bay in Bay City, Washington, is a gritty, antiquated coastal dive bar.
1545 FRANKLIN AVE., ASTORIA • 503-325-4691
Church of Christ
Friendship in Christ’s love!
A G LIMPSE I NSIDE
An occasional feature by MATT LOVE
Dock of the Bay
Easter Service - 10:30 AM Sunday
Sermon - Easter Prophesied,
including Jesus’ Resurrection
You are invited to celebrate the resurrection
of Jesus with an AFTER Easter
community sing-a-long
Sat. April 2nd 3:00 PM,
Refreshments served.
692 12th St. Astoria, OR.
For further information call
(503)791-3235 or (503)468-8397
All the great dive bar
ai cionados in the area
told me the same thing:
“Matt, you’ve got to check
out Dock of the Bay in Bay
Center, Washington.”
So I did.
Glorious. Absolutely
glorious in its gritty and
antiquated coastal splen-
dor.
I pulled up in front of
Dock of the Bay on a Saturday
afternoon in February. I have
no idea how I found it. A few lo-
cals in Raymond had given me
vague directions, but I passed
the alleged turnoff from U.S.
Highway 101 at least twice and
felt lost. As I drove around the
fringes of Willapa Bay, it oc-
curred to me that the Dock of
the Bay might not exist. Per-
haps it was only a legend.
And then I saw it: a some-
what ramshackle, octagon-like
building nestled between
all things of the oystering
trade. I parked in front, exited
the truck and inspected the
façade. There didn’t seem to be
a front entrance so I asked two
men smoking outside about
this oddity.
“There are three entrances,”
said a man. That was a i rst in
my dive bar life.
I walked in and sat down on
a stool at a long wooden bar.
I ordered a Guinness in bottle
and placed an order for —
what else? — an oyster burger.
A couple of men sat at the
bar. They were obviously lo-
cals connected to the oyster-
ing trade. I asked one of them
about Bay Center’s i nest quali-
ty. “No cops,” he said.
That was that. I like terse an-
swers in dive bars.
The man suggested I take
a look at an old photograph
on the wall. I did. It was a black
and white shot from 1949 of
a great white shark caught in
Willapa Bay. It looked as big as
the fake one from “Jaws.” I had
no idea great whites traveled
this far up Pacii c Northwest
estuaries — or used to. See
what you can learn in coast-
al dive bars? Marine biolo-
gy, among other subjects.
My oyster burger arrived
in the blink of an eye. I took
a bite. It was the best oyster
burger I’d ever tasted.
I ate and listened to the
men talk. I heard a priceless
line: “The gals are up at the
house steam cleaning the
carpet, and I couldn’t hear
the TV so I came here.” I
heard more priceless lines. I
could listen to the regulars’
i shing and crabbing mis-
hap stories for hours. There
is easily a novella or true
crime thriller in every one
of them.
The Guinness didn’t re-
ally go that great with the
oyster burger. Next time,
Rainier, as I should have or-
dered in the i rst place.
on 160 acres in the area after
jumping ship in Astoria in the
1870s. The post oi ce oi cially
changed its name from Bear
Creek to Svensen in 1895. The
post oi ce closed in 1944.
waiting to take a train for Rainer.”
Matt Love is the author/editor of
14 books about Oregon, including
“A Nice Piece of Astoria.” His books
are available through coastal
bookstores or his website, nestuc-
caspitpress.com
NW
word
nerd
By RYAN HUME
Svensen
Christian Church of Knappa
42417 Va lley Creek La n e
A s toria , O reg on 97103
Service time 10:30 a.m.
Christian Church of Seaside
580 A ven u e U
S ea s id e, O reg on 97138
Service time 10:30 am
Christian Church of Warrenton
1376 S .E. A n chor A ve
W a rren ton , O reg on 97146
O ffice: (503)861-1714 Fa x: (503)861-3392
W eb: w w w.cconline.cc
Service times: 9:00 and 10:30 am
>VYܭQVܭQ@
noun
1. an unincorporated area
in Clatsop County situated
on the Columbia River and
located 11 miles east of Asto-
ria on U.S. Highway 30
2. Svensen Island: a some-
what marshy island sitting in
the Columbia River at Mile 24
and separated from the main-
land by the Svensen Slough,
which drains into the river
Origin:
A variant of Svensson, one of
the most common Scandinavian
surnames, which literally means,
“son of Sven.” In Sweden to refer
to someone idiomatically as
a “Svensson” is to imply their
ubiquity in Swedish culture,
much like calling someone an
average Joe in U.S. parlance. The
community, island and slough
in Clatsop County are attributed
to Peter Svensen, a Finnish sailor
who settled into a homestead
“Charles P. Duke, the prisoner
who escaped from the County Jail
Thursday evening, was captured by
Deputy Sheriff McLean at Svensen
this evening as the fugitive was
—“Escaped Prisoner Retaken,” The Sun-
day Oregonian, June 9, 1907, P. 15
“The 30-kilowatt generator is locat-
ed at the base of Bear Creek Dam east of
the city near Svensen and is expected to
produce about 154,645 kilowatt-hours
of electricity a year.”
— Derrick DePledge, “At Bear Creek
Dam, a shift in power,” The Daily Astorian,
Feb. 26, 2015
March 24, 2016 | coastweekend.com | 23