Ghost Canoe

Ghost Canoe is a novel for young readers by the American writer Will Hobbs, published in 1997. It is set on the coast of Washington State, among the Makah, the whaling people whose territory Cape Flattery belongs to. The ship went aground on the rocks in a storm, and the authorities were quick to say that nobody had come ashore alive.

Nathan McAllister is the lightkeeper's son, and when the ship is lost he goes on believing that there is a survivor even though he is told that there is not. His friend Lighthouse George is a Makah fisherman, and the two of them take a canoe out on the rough water to fish, to hunt seals and to look for whatever is leaving tracks on the beach. He is sure that somebody is hiding in the remote sea caves along that coast.

Nathan also finds a canoe that seems to have no owner and, in the forest, a skeleton, both of which may belong to the mystery he is trying to solve. The book holds to what he can see and work out for himself rather than explaining the coast on his behalf.