Photo: The View from Scenic Beach State Park

Scenic Beach State Park in Washington State along the Hood Canal offers views of a glacier-formed fjord and dramatic vistas of the Olympic Mountains inside Olympic National Park. Hood Canal was first called "Hood's Channel" by Captain Vancouver, its European discoverer, in 1792 after Lord Hood, a famous English Admiral of the day.

There are several long narrow valleys sculpted by the last ice age, or, in geological terms, "fjords," in North America, mainly in British Columbia and Alaska, but they are most associated with the Scandinavian coastlines.