Bellingham Bay is a bay located on the northern Pacific coast of Washington state in the United States. It is separated from the Strait of Georgia on the west by the Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, and Lummi Island. It is bordered on the east by Bellingham, Washington, to the south-east by the Chuckanut Mountains, and to the south by Samish Bay. The Nooksack River empties into the bay, as does Whatcom Creek.
Bellingham Bay is named for Sir William Bellingham, who was controller of the storekeeper's account for the Royal Navy at the time that Britons under the command of George Vancouver visited the bay in June 1792. The first European entry of the bay was by the Spanish schooner Santa Saturnina under José María Narváez, during the 1791 expedition of Francisco de Eliza. Narváez named it Seno Gaston.
Parts of the bay are polluted by mercury from the Georgia-Pacific pulp mill that has been on the bay since 1965, but is currently undergoing plans for clean-up.
Famous quotes containing the word bay:
“The very dogs that sullenly bay the moon from farm-yards in these nights excite more heroism in our breasts than all the civil exhortations or war sermons of the age.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)