Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 624, An Ocean Between Us, Part 1.

Just about 10 years ago, as I'm writing this, I went to visit the town of Port Angeles, Washington, for the very first time.

Port Angeles is about three hours or so from Seattle out on the Olympic Peninsula.

That's the part of the state that if you look at a map, juts out on the Olympic Peninsula. That's the part of the

state that if you look at a map, just out into the Pacific Ocean. If you have heard of the

Olympic Peninsula, it's usually for one of three things. The first, of course, is the town of Forks,

Washington, which is on the far end of the peninsula along the Pacific coast, and is apparently

home to

most of our state's local vampire population. I have not been, I'm told the town's economy is based

largely on twilight tourism these days, which, hey, fair enough, that's one way to make a buck.

The second is the town slightly to the south of Forks, Aberdeen, named for the similarly rainy and gloomy

place in Scotland, and the spot where about 40 years ago a young man named Kurt Cobain

formed a band with his friends by the name of Nirvana. And of course, they got the hell out

of Aberdeen as quickly as it possible, two slightly more exciting places like the state

capital at Olympia,

Tacoma, and eventually Seattle itself, but Aberdeen still puts the phrase, come as you are,

on its welcome to town sign because you got to milk that for all its worth.

The last thing the peninsula is known for is the Olympic National Park itself, which comprises most of the actual land area

of the peninsula itself.

It's about 922,000 acres, or 3,733 square kilometers, which kind of incredibly makes it

only the 12th largest national park in the U.S. behind Glacier, Grand Canyon, Everglades, Cobbock Valley, Yellowstone, Lake Clark, Glacier Bay, Death Valley, Katmai, Tenali, Gates of the Arctic, and Rangel St. Elias National Park. Seven of those, by the way, are in Alaska, which I didn't realize. That's pretty cool. Anyway, just a reminder, the U.S. National Park System is absolutely incredible, unequal to anywhere in the world, and worth protecting.

Now, keen-eared listeners will probably notice that none of those three things were, in fact, Port Angeles.

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