The forecast called for a rare sunny winter Saturday, perfect for a state park day trip. Joemma Beach State Park is 15 miles from Olympia as the crow flies, but 60 miles by car. Lacking a boat, much less any seafaring skills, we’d have to drive around the maze of water and land that forms the southern reaches of Puget Sound. It’s a drive I particularly like, tracing a giant “C” northwest to the logging town of Shelton, then northeast through timber country onto the Kitsap Peninsula, bounded by Hood Canal on the west and Puget Sound on the east. Joemma Beach is on the rural Key Peninsula, a 16-mile-long finger of land pointing south from the bottom reaches of the Kitsap Peninsula.
One peninsula, two state parks
The Key Peninsula boasts two state parks, Joemma Beach and Penrose Point, and we had a notion we might be able to visit both in one day. But pulling into Joemma’s parking lot overlooking Case Inlet through the trees, I suspected that was overly ambitious. Low clouds were burning away by the time we arrived, revealing a bluebird sky above and Harstine Island on the horizon. The low winter sunshine refracted into mirror shards on the dark water of Case Inlet. There was much to explore.
From the parking lot, tree-dotted lawns stretch gently toward the water. Even without the dashboard gauge reading 30 degrees, we could tell it was cold. Everything looked especially crisp and bright, tree trunks and branches etched sharply against the frigid air. We wrapped up in hats, scarves, gloves, and puffy jackets, and headed down the slope toward the beach.
Onto the pier
First, a decision: beach left, beach right, or dock straight ahead? Jutting hundreds of feet out, the dock unfurled from the shore. Along its length, a half-dozen bumpouts provide perches for fishing. With 500 feet of tie-up space for boats, I’m sure the dock is crowded in the summer. I took tiny steps on the frost-slick wood and eventually reached the end where a ramp, pulled up for the winter, leads to seasonally installed floating boat slips. Farther out, park staff will anchor five moorage buoys for boating season. In the distance, toward the north end of the park beach, we spied a small skiff in the water, its pilot hunched against the chill. I figured it was probably ten degrees colder on the water. That’s one hardy boater.
Even in February, it’s clear Joemma is perfect for boaters. Right next to the base of the boat dock is a boat launch, the only one on the Key Peninsula with adjacent parking, making it convenient to trailer a boat there and leave a car while enjoying a day on the water. The park is on the Cascadia Marine Trail, a 150-mile water route through the Salish Sea that traces historic marine paths used for travel and commerce. The trail offers more than 50 campsites for people arriving by human-powered watercraft, from kayaks to SUPs to traditional carved canoes. Joemma Beach reserves a few sites for marine trail travelers, and I thought, not for the first time, how wonderful it would be to paddle to a state park for an overnight camping trip. Not today, though. Too cold. And, you know, no boat.
Beachcombing
We headed to the beach, turning north, and fell into our disparate beach walking patterns. Mr. Adventure is goal-oriented, striding toward one end, wanting to see how far it is to the park boundary. I, on the other hand, am immediately distracted by all sort of interesting things underfoot. Shells, rocks, twigs, seaweed; I can’t resist, and end up walking in a bent-over stoop, peering at the ground. Oooh, a snail shell! Beach glass! Interesting barnacle clusters! I held the best specimens in my mitten, eventually arranging them on a piece of driftwood where another beachcomber might find them. There’s plenty of flotsam on the beach, too. Old tires, pieces of styrofoam coolers, and lengths of PVC pipe mingled with the driftwood.
By the time I looked up, Mr. Adventure was a tiny figure clambering over driftwood in the distance. By the time I caught up, he’d reached the park boundary sign and was ready to turn around and head the other direction. Joemma Beach is so lovely and charming, this would definitely not be a quick visit. The sun was shining, adding a bit of psychological if not physical warmth, and I wanted to do more beachcombing. Mr. Adventure started back toward the boat dock and I moseyed along, again falling farther and farther behind.
South beach
I crossed the dock and headed onto the southern part of Joemma Beach. Tall bluffs crowned with Pacific madrones squeezed against the beach. I couldn’t see Mr. Adventure, but kept walking, forcing myself to speed up some. The shoreline curved and the beach widened a bit, but, nope, nothing ahead but birds. Finally I looked back. There he was, walking out on the dock again, looking for me. I retraced my steps and hailed him, then we walked down the beach together to a sign for Camp Colman, a YMCA summer camp near the park’s southern boundary.
We’d been at the park about an hour by this point, and other people were starting to show up. A couple with a dog passed us on the beach. A family with three small children meandered along the sand, the kids looking for treasures. Maybe they’d find my small display of shells, rocks, and glass. I could have stayed on the beach, but Mr. Adventure was itching to explore the rest of the park, so I followed, albeit dragging my feet a bit.
Campground loop
A short trail near the dock entrance leads to the top of the bluffs and into a campground loop. These are primitive sites — water, but no hookups — set prettily among the trees. We followed the loop out to the park entrance road, then followed that to the second camping loop above the parking lot. A short trail veered off, and we followed that to the park’s northern boundary before doubling back and hiking around the forested campground.
This isn’t old-growth forest, but it is a conventional maritime Northwest forest, Douglas-firs and Pacific madrones shading an understory of evergreen huckleberry, salal, low Oregon grape, and sword fern. Walking through in winter afforded good views of Case Inlet and Joemma’s ample dock. A big Western red-cedar along the trail flaunted artistically sinuous bark, all twists and knots in shades of brown and red. An eagle wheeled overhead, perhaps looking for unsuspecting waterfowl or inattentive fish.
Time and tides and the Key Peninsula
Standing on the overlook and watching the water flow through Case Inlet, it was tempting to think of the scene spread out in front of me as frozen in time. Certain places on interior Puget Sound, with evergreen forests dropping to deep waters, feel ancient and eternal. But it’s hooey to think they’re unchanged. Like every other inch of Puget Sound shoreline, time and tides have shaped the landscape. There is history here.
The challenge is finding it. Or, to be precise, finding reliable sources. As an historian, I always look for at least two credible sources to verify facts. That proved challenging for Joemma Beach (the Key Peninsula Historical Society & Museum store and my local library list intriguing titles, but both are closed because of the pandemic), so with that caveat I’ll share what I learned.
Native peoples
Native peoples, especially the Squaxin and Nisqually, visited Key Peninsula for food gathering and seasonal camps. They left behind shell middens, a sort of garbage pile of empty shells and other material that denote a site where indigenous peoples processed shellfish and other resources. But while one source said that no permanent village sites have been found on Key Peninsula, another quoted a resident who related a contradicting story an old-timer told her.
In this sort of historical “telephone operator” game, the old-timer said that Native Americans built lodges on the bluffs above Whiteman Cove, just south of today’s Joemma Beach State Park. The cove was bounded by a long isthmus, which forced saltwater to flow in and out through a small entrance, so it would have been ideal for fishing and shellfish harvesting, and a natural canoe landing.
Indigenous peoples came to what’s now Joemma Beach and Whiteman Cove each summer, meeting to trade and socialize. They built fires on the beach to guide travelers. Natives paddled “ghost canoes” bearing wrapped corpses to a burial site on the north side of the cove, transporting them under a full moon. Whiteman Cove is supposedly named for the first white man to marry a local indigenous woman. It’s all plausible, but I can’t confirm it. Time alters memory, as Heather Lockman’s book The Indian Shirt Story (set in a place that could easily be the Key Peninsula) compellingly elucidates.
Joe + Emma = Joemma Beach
Joe Smith’s family came west from Missouri in 1883, when he was ten years old, and settled in the Palouse country. He volunteered with a local regiment to fight in the 1898 Spanish-American War in the Philippines, and sent dispatches home from the front, becoming the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s first overseas war correspondent.
Joe married Emma Gaard sometime after returning from the war, and the Smiths lived in Seattle where he continued to work as a reporter. They moved to the Key Peninsula in 1917, settling on land north of Whiteman Cove and naming it Joemma Beach.
It’s not clear whether the Smiths purchased or leased the land; it was state trust land, granted to Washington at statehood in 1889 to produce revenue to fund public schools. The Smiths ran a small clutch of cabins there, but their main income seems to be from a nursery they started, perhaps under the state trust land agricultural lease program. Joe Smith published a horticultural newsletter, the Joemma Bulletin, distributing it nationally. The Smiths eventually moved back to Seattle but kept the nursery enterprise at Joemma Beach.
In the 1930s, perhaps as a result of the Great Depression or the Smiths pulling out of the nursery business, the property reverted back to the state. The state allowed picnicking and camping there, but Joemma was mostly used by locals. Then, in June 1968, the state Department of Natural Resources refreshed and reopened it as the Robert F. Kennedy Recreation Site. While the name was probably selected by Commissioner of Public Lands Bert Cole, a Democrat, to honor the senator who’d been assassinated days before, locals continued to call it Joemma Beach as they had for decades. In the early 1990s, Keith Stiles, who wrote for the Key Peninsula News and eventually served as the community newspaper’s editor, led an effort to restore Joemma Beach’s historical name.
Washington State Parks took over the site in 1995, and Stiles’ efforts paid off when it was renamed Joemma Beach State Park in honor of the Smiths’ tenure there.
Back to the beach
We descended from the blufftop trail and passed some boat-in campsites, then a large picnic shelter. Rows of golden glowing tables looked like they’d been recently refinished, perfect for a family reunion or group picnic.
Walking through the lawns, we admired the tall trees through which the water was visible. The temperature had warmed to 40 degrees, and there were perhaps two dozen people at the park.
We’d spent the better part of a short winter day at winsome Joemma Beach. With its long shoreline, boating facilities, tall bluffs, and forested campground, Joemma is the quintessential Puget Sound saltwater beach and forest park.
Fast facts about Joemma Beach State Park
- 106-acre marine camping park, open year-round
- $10 daily parking pass (buy the annual Discover Pass, a bargain at $30)
- 3000′ shoreline on Case Inlet
- boat and fishing dock, moorage buoys
- crabbing, fishing, beachcombing, birding, boating
- 2 campground loops with 19 first-come, first-served primitive campsites; 2 boat-in campsites, 3 hiker-biker campsites; vault toilets
- hiking trails
- picnic shelter, picnic tables, grills, restrooms
- park map
- park brochure
Winsome indeed! that seems a good description of this pretty place. Living in Shelton, I know nothing about the Key Peninsula. Thank you for the introduction and the history.