Sea Glass

It was once a dump, now it is one of the world’s most famous glass beaches. Located next to Fort Bragg, it was like a gold mine to those who collected these fragments from past bottles and other types of glass.

I first learned about people’s passion for collecting sea glass from our daughter-in-law, Cammie. Our son Tony was stationed on Kodiak Island as a helicopter pilot for the Coast Guard and Cammie had taken up producing sea glass jewelry to sell. Peggy and I were invited to join a family outing to collect sea glass on a local beach when we were visiting. It was like going on a treasure hunt. The glass had once hosted a variety of alcoholic drinks in a local bar that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Then the 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake struck. It was over six times as powerful as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The devastation caused by the shockwaves and tsunami was massive— and it included the Kodiak bar, washing it into the ocean. Ever since, the Pacific Ocean has been turning the liquor, wine, and beer bottles into sea glass.

A USGS photo of the waterfront of Kodiak after the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

Cammie turned the sea glass into attractive jewelry that she marketed on Facebook and in local shops.

The combination of rocks, shells and glass reworked by the ocean and wet down by the retreating tide was quite photogenic. Cammie told us that the colored glass was less common and worth more than the clear glass— the more rare, the more valuable.

This rock, with what I think are quartz intrusions, also demanded a photo. It was taken above the tide line and illustrates how important the water was in bringing out the color of the glass rocks and shells.

The story behind the glass beach at Fort Bragg isn’t nearly as dramatic as the beach in Kodiak. The beach was the site of the community’s official dump until 1967. The attitude up until then in Fort Bragg and numerous other coastal towns had been why worry about burying your garbage when the ocean will wash it out to sea. Growing awareness about the potential harm from the practice by the community plus pressure from the California Water Resources Board led to closing the dump in 1967. Degradable garbage degraded, non-degradable garbage such as automobiles and refrigerators was hauled away, and the glass, already on its way to becoming sea glass, was left to become more sea-glassy.