Neah Bay

History

The name "Neah" refers to the Makah Chief Dee-ah, pronounced Neah in the Klallam language. The town is named for the water body Neah Bay, which acquired its name in the early 19th century. A number of names were used for the bay before it was established as Neah Bay. In August 1788 Captain Charles Duncan, a British trader, charted a bay at the location of Neah Bay, but did not give it a name. In 1790 Manuel Quimper took possession of the bay for Spain and named it "Bahía de Núñez Gaona" in honor of Alonso Núñez de Haro y Peralta, viceroy of New Spain. In 1792 Salvador Fidalgo began to build a Spanish fort on Neah Bay, but the project failed within the year and the cannon and supplies were transported to the more northerly colony of Santa Cruz de Nuca. While Fidalgo was working on the fort George Vancouver charted but did not stop at the bay. American traders called Neah Bay "Poverty Cove". In 1841 the United States Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes mapped the region and named Neah Bay "Scarborough Harbour" in honor of Captain James Scarborough of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had provided assistance to the expedition. The Wilkes map contained the first use of the word "Neah", but for the bay's island, now called Waadah Island. The bay was first called Neah in 1847 by Captain Henry Kellett during his reorganization of the British Admiralty charts. Kellett spelled it "Neeah Bay". In 1929, the Neah Bay Dock Company, a subsidiary of the Puget Sound Navigation Company, owned a wharf and a hotel at Neah Bay. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Neah Bay and the Makah Reservation were closed to anyone who was not a Makah tribal member. The tribal council decided to reopen the reservation on 15 March 2022.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, Neah Bay has a total area of , all of it land. The community is approximately west-northwest of Seattle. Neah Bay has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), common in the small coastal cities of Washington. Generally speaking, temperatures have little annual fluctuation being strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean, with the warm currents and patterns of the west as well as the mountains to the east that shape an extremely light climate, even between places in close conditions. Its climate is similar to southern New Zealand, but with cool summers to cold and rarely warm as it is most common in these places. To the west of the Olympic Mountains, Neah Bay has an often rainy climate and usually in larger numbers than the Gulf Coast, the wettest place in the eastern US. Although it is a pretty damp city, its average amount of snow falling is only slightly higher than Norfolk, VA. Sunshine hours are typical for an often hazy temperate climate. Climate data is taken from a weather station on nearby Tatoosh Island that operated until 1966.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  3,294
• Bald Eagle

  Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,218
• Song Sparrow

  Melospiza melodia (A.Wilson, 1810) · Aves
  2,481
• Pelagic Cormorant

  Phalacrocorax pelagicus Pallas, 1811 · Aves
  2,468
• Surf Scoter

  Melanitta perspicillata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  2,265
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  2,164
• Glaucous-winged Gull

  Larus glaucescens J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  2,138
• Pacific Wren

  Troglodytes pacificus S.F.Baird, 1864 · Aves
  2,033

Most recent

• M 2.85 — 2025-10-22
  8 km SW of Port Angeles, Washington
• M 2.6 — 2025-09-18
  14 km SW of Cowichan Bay, Canada
• M 3.7 — 2025-08-19
  17 km NNW of Sekiu, Washington
• M 3 — 2025-05-01
  19 km E of Ucluelet, Canada
• M 3.68 — 2025-02-14
  16 km SSE of Victoria, Canada
• M 2.57 — 2024-10-29
  34 km WSW of Neah Bay, Washington