Hale Passage is the name of two different bodies of water in Puget Sound, in the U.S. state of Washington.
Puget Sound is a sound along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and two minor connections to the open Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca—Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and Deception Pass and Swinomish Channel being the minor.
Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Named for George Washington, the first president of the United States, the state was made out of the western part of the Washington Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1846 in accordance with the Oregon Treaty in the settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Olympia is the state capital; the state's largest city is Seattle. Washington is sometimes referred to as Washington State, to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, which is often shortened to Washington.
- In the north Sound, in Whatcom County, Hale Passage separates Lummi Island from the mainland near Bellingham. 48°43′48″N122°40′46″W / 48.73000°N 122.67944°W
- In the south Sound in Pierce County, another Hale Passage separates Fox Island from the Kitsap Peninsula, near Gig Harbor. 47°16′36″N122°39′05″W / 47.27667°N 122.65139°W
Lummi Island lies at the southwest corner of Whatcom County, Washington, United States, between the mainland part of the county and offshore San Juan County. The Lummi Indian Reservation is situated on a peninsula east of the island, but does not include Lummi Island. The island has a land area of 23.97 square kilometres and had a population of 822 as of the 2000 census. The population nearly doubles in summer when property owners from both Canada and the U.S. arrive for summer fun and relaxation.
Bellingham is the county seat and most populous city of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. Located 52 miles southwest of Vancouver, 90 miles north of Seattle, and 21 miles south of the Canada-US border, Bellingham is in between two major metropolitan areas, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. The city’s population was 80,885 at the 2010 United States Census. With an April 1, 2018 population estimate of 88,500 per the Washington State Office of Financial Management, Bellingham is the twelfth-most populous city in the state of Washington.
Pierce County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 795,225, making it the second-most populous county in Washington behind King County. The county seat and largest city is Tacoma. Formed out of Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the legislature of Oregon Territory, it was named for U.S. President Franklin Pierce. Pierce County is in the Seattle metropolitan area.
In both cases, the passages were named by the Wilkes Expedition for ethnologist Horatio Hale. [1]
Horatio Emmons Hale was an American-Canadian ethnologist, philologist and businessman who studied language as a key for classifying ancient peoples and being able to trace their migrations. He was the first to discover that the Tutelo language of Virginia belonged to the Siouan family, and to identify the Cherokee language as a member of the Iroquoian family of languages. In addition, he published a work Iroquois Book of Rites (1883), based on interpreting the Iroquois wampum belts, as well as his studies with tribal leaders.
