Winter storms along the Pacific coasts have uncovered several types of artifacts buried in Oregon including shipwrecks, ghost forrests, canons, and iron deposits.

Winter storms this year have washed away the coast of Portland Oregon, revealing many historical artifacts. These artifacts include shipwrecks, cannons, ghost forests, and unique iron deposits. Such findings have created winter tourist attractions in southern coastal Oregon where the discoveries lie in established archaeological sites.

The findings began to take place in December due to violent Pacific storms which also caused $60 million in damage to various buildings, roads, bridges, and private homes, especially in the small coastal town of Veronia, Oregon. The high seas that came with the storms also caused extensive beach erosion unlike any another winter season with the sand eroding up to 17 feet in some places.

The shipwrecks are the most awed of the findings. Police have rerouted traffic around the ship due to high interest from spectators. One of the ships they are flocking to see is the George L. Olson which ran aground at Coos Bay’s North Jetty in June 1944. The ship’s identification was confirmed by a local man’s 1947 photograph of the ship. Two other ships were found, one in Bandon and the other where the Siuslaw River meets with the ocean near Florence. They are wooden ships that have not yet been identified. The Florence ship has since been recovered with sands.

Ghost forests have also remerged from the sand. A grove of tree stumps are all that’s left from a forest that is estimated to be about 4,000 years old. The stumps are surrounded by a clay-like ground that was once the forest floor. The most impressive of these groves are at the Arch Cape.

Also at Arch Cape, some beachcombers uncovered a pair of historic canons weighing up to a half ton. These canons are currently being restored in tanks of freshwater and burlap. They are believed to have come from the USS Shark, a survey ship that wrecked off the Columbia River Bar in 1846. Iron deposits are the final objects to have been uncovered by the storms. These deposits are orange lumps known as “red towers.” They are about three feet tall and are usually found buried in sand as these were.

These attractions have caused swarms of people to flock to the Oregon coast to see them, sometimes drawing up to 3,000 visitors coming in for the weekend. The convenience of the shipwreck’s location as well as the area’s close ties to the maritime, fishing, and lumber industry. However, this tourist attraction may be short lived as some of the findings are already beginning to be recovered by the sand. Archaeologists are still determining whether to allow all of the artifacts to be recovered as summer nears or to preserve certain pieces in the maritime museum.