Poulsbo Travel Guide

Introduction

Poulsbo: 15 miles NW of Bainbridge Island ferry dock, 35 miles S of Port Townsend, 45 miles N of Tacoma

Roughly 45 miles long and confusingly convoluted, the Kitsap Peninsula looks something like an arrowhead wedged between Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula. Tucked amid the folds of its many glacial hills and fjordlike waterways is an eclectic assortment of small towns, each with a very different character.

For thousands of years, this region was home to several Native American tribes, including the Suquamish, who once had a 900-foot-long longhouse on the shores of Agate Pass between the Kitsap Peninsula and Bainbridge Island. Chief Sealth (pronounced See-alth), for whom Seattle is named, was a member of the Suquamish tribe, and today his grave can be visited near the town of Suquamish.

The region's earliest pioneer history is linked to the logging industry. At Port Gamble, on the north end of the peninsula, Andrew Pope and William Talbot chose to build their sawmill, which...