Bellingham Trivia
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45 free Bellingham trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
49 free Bellingham trivia questions with answers. Bellingham, Washington was four rival towns until 1903, sits 21 miles from Canada, and lies in the shadow of a volcano whose ski area once got 95 feet of snow in a winter. This quiz covers the City of Subdued Excitement from George Vancouver naming the bay in 1792 through coal at Sehome, Dirty Dan Harris and the Fairhaven boom, George Pickett's fort, the Georgia-Pacific mill and the waterfront rebuild. It also takes in Western Washington University and its Vikings, Ski to Sea, the Alaska Marine Highway terminal, Lake Whatcom, the 1999 pipeline explosion, the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher, the Bells, and the locals who made it big, from Death Cab for Cutie and Hilary Swank to Ryan Stiles. Easy questions ask which county Bellingham runs; the hard ones want the year Sehome Hill's tunnel was cut and Whatcom County's census count. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia entry on the place, institution or person, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bellingham lies between which two big cities, about 50 miles from one and 90 from the other?
Vancouver and Seattle
Vancouver and Seattle: the bay towns once bet on becoming the Great Northern Railway's western terminus, but the railroad chose Seattle instead.
Q 02Sir William Bellingham, whose name the city carries, did what for the British voyage that named its bay?
Oversaw its supplies
Oversaw its supplies: a Royal Navy stores official, he checked the voyage's provisions and accounts in England; the captain never wrote whom the name honored, but it was almost surely him.
Q 03Bellingham's first sawmill, on Whatcom Creek, was built to sell lumber for rebuilding which fire-ravaged city?
San Francisco
San Francisco: fire had gutted parts of the city, but by the time the mill was running, California lumber prices had fallen and its owners' hopes of a fortune faded.
Q 04Who platted the town of Fairhaven in 1883 around his homestead on Padden Creek?
Dan Harris
Dan Harris: known as 'Dirty Dan', he later sold most of his remaining Fairhaven land and retired to Los Angeles.
Q 05What resource was discovered at Sehome in 1854, driving the area's early economy?
Coal
Coal: the land went to the Bellingham Bay Coal Company, and the mining town that grew up around its Sehome pit became today's downtown Bellingham.
Q 06Which 1858 event caused a short-lived population boom in the Bellingham Bay settlements?
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush: in spring 1858 thousands of miners bound for the Fraser River camped at Whatcom, briefly swelling it to some 10,000 people before the boom collapsed within months.
Q 07Which Native nation's reservation lies directly west of Bellingham, formed after the Treaty of Point Elliott?
Lummi
Lummi: the Lummi Reservation on the Lummi Peninsula and Portage Island, just west of Bellingham, was set aside under the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott.
Q 08Which interstate highway runs through Bellingham?
Interstate 5
Interstate 5: downtown boosters lobbied for a route closer to the city center, but planners swung the freeway around downtown instead.
Q 09Bellingham holds which geographic distinction among cities of more than 90,000 people?
Northernmost in the contiguous US
Northernmost in the contiguous US: at about 48.75 degrees north, Bellingham lies north of every other Lower-48 city with more than 90,000 people, including Seattle and Spokane.
Q 10Which river, fed by glaciers near Mount Baker, empties into Bellingham Bay?
Nooksack
Nooksack: its floodwaters can spill north through the Sumas River into British Columbia, as when the river overtopped in November 2021 and forced evacuations.
Q 11The university on Sehome Hill started life in 1893 as what kind of institution?
A teachers' training school
A teachers' training school: it prepared teachers for rural classrooms, and as the state demanded more schooling for teachers it began awarding degrees, becoming Western Washington University in 1977.
Q 12What is the nickname of Bellingham's university sports teams?
Vikings
Vikings: Western Washington's teams compete as the Vikings in NCAA Division II; the women's rowing squad won the school's first NCAA team title in 2005.
Q 13Until 2021, which name did Western's environmental college, one of the first in the US, carry?
Huxley
Q 21Which highway runs east from Bellingham to the Mount Baker Ski Area?
Route 542
Route 542: the Mount Baker Highway is kept open all winter for skiers, but its final stretch up to Artist Point opens only in summer.
Q 22Where does the Ski to Sea race finish?
Marine Park in Fairhaven
Marine Park in Fairhaven: the district's grand Fairhaven Hotel was built in the 1890s to lure railroad tycoons, who never came, and it was torn down in 1953.
Q 23Which country's explorers first entered Bellingham Bay, before the British named it?
Spain
Spain: a 1791 Spanish expedition gave the bay a Spanish name, but the British name charted the next year is the one that stuck.
Huxley: a task force cited Thomas Henry Huxley's 'hierarchical views' on race, so in December 2021 the school became simply the College of the Environment.
Q 14Which indie rock band formed in Bellingham in 1997 while its singer was studying at Western?
Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab for Cutie: the band took its name from a 1967 song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Q 15Which Best Actress Oscar winner grew up near Lake Samish and attended Bellingham's Sehome High School?
Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank: after her parents split, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles so she could act, and she later won Oscars for Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby.
Q 16Which Whose Line Is It Anyway? star founded Bellingham's Upfront Theatre improv venue?
Ryan Stiles
Ryan Stiles, a longtime Bellingham resident, founded the Upfront Theatre downtown; he also played Lewis on The Drew Carey Show and Herb on Two and a Half Men.
Q 17By what Indigenous name is Mount Baker, the volcano east of Bellingham, also known?
Kulshan
Kulshan, or Koma Kulshan: the peak's English name honors Lieutenant Joseph Baker, who spotted it in 1792 while serving on the British expedition.
Q 18What world record did Mt. Baker Ski Area set in the 1998-99 ski year?
Most snowfall in a single season
1,140 inches, or 95 feet, fell that winter; the resort averages 641 inches a year.
Q 19Which Northwest grocery chain was founded in Bellingham?
Haggen
Haggen: in 2014 it agreed to take over 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores, but the expansion faltered and it filed for bankruptcy the next year.
Q 20Which snowboard race through a natural halfpipe has been held at Mt. Baker since 1985?
Legendary Banked Slalom
Pros and amateurs of all ages ride the same course over the same days.
Q 24Bellingham's Fairhaven district has been the southern terminus of which ferry system since 1989?
Alaska Marine Highway
Alaska Marine Highway: in 1989 Alaska's state ferry system moved its southern terminus from Seattle to the Bellingham Cruise Terminal in Fairhaven.
Q 25Which Amtrak service stops at Fairhaven Station in Bellingham?
Cascades
Cascades: in December 2017, a Cascades train on the first run over a faster new route took a 30 mph curve far too fast near DuPont and derailed, killing three.
Q 26What is Bellingham's tongue-in-cheek nickname?
City of Subdued Excitement
City of Subdued Excitement: the unofficial motto pokes fun at the town's laid-back pace and appears on local T-shirts, stickers and shop signs.
Q 27A 1907 Bellingham mob drove out immigrant lumber mill workers who had come mostly from which country?
India
India: the mob beat the workers, and within a day it had driven them out of town.
Q 28What disaster struck a Bellingham creek-side park on June 10, 1999?
A gasoline pipeline explosion
A gasoline pipeline explosion: about 277,000 gallons poured into Whatcom Creek; fumes overcame an 18-year-old fly fisherman, and the fireball killed two 10-year-old boys.
Q 29Which Civil War general built Fort Bellingham in 1856 and left behind the city's oldest house?
George Pickett
George Pickett: the U.S. Army captain who built the fort later joined the Confederacy and is remembered for leading the doomed charge at Gettysburg.
Q 30Which bloodless 1859 standoff with Britain over San Juan Island drew troops from Fort Bellingham?
The Pig War
The Pig War: an American settler shot a Hudson's Bay Company pig rooting in his garden, and in the standoff that followed, the pig was the only casualty.