At low tide, stop at the Nahcotta Tidelands Interpretive Site and WDFW’s Willapa Bay Field Station to look for people donning rubber boots or hip waders to pick and shuck oysters on the public beds. A bit further up Sandridge Road, stop at a working oyster port — Port of Peninsula. Here the Willapa Bay Interpretive Center (open Friday through Sunday from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend) traces the chronology of the oyster industry and displays the tools of the trade as a replica of an oyster farming family’s residence. The Port also hosts the occasional festival and a food truck. It was in 1889 that the now-defunct Ilwaco Railroad & Navigation Company completed the “Clamshell Railroad” tracks from Ilwaco to Nahcotta making it easier to transport native oysters, cranberries, clams, lumber, and passengers to and from this still-busy port on the west side of Willapa Bay.
Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Nahcotta Tidelands Interpretive Site
Willapa Bay Field Station, 26700 Sandridge Rd, 98640
