Oregon may be known for its world-class wine and rugged, mountainous scenery, but its eccentric small towns showcase a different side of the state’s singularity. In the north, you’ll find Shaniko, the once-abandoned “wool capital of the world,”<\/a>\u00a0whereas in the west, you can see the world’s second-largest\u00a0UFO Festival in McMinnville, a quirky historic town in Oregon’s wine country<\/a>. On the Oregonian coast, the town of Florence may be best known for the whale explosion\u00a0that occurred on its shores in 1970.\u00a0Today, that curious event is\u00a0commemorated by the Exploding Whale Memorial Park,\u00a0\u00a0which sits on the Siuslaw River, with picnic areas, a photo-worthy oversized chair, and a small sandy riverfront beach with views of the area’s iconic sand dunes.<\/p>\n The story of the Florence whale explosion starts on November 12, 1970, when an eight-ton sperm whale washed up on Florence’s beach. The carcass was too large to cut into smaller chunks, and officials didn’t want to bury it, fearing that the smell of rot wouldn’t be sufficiently contained. So, they resolved to blow it up with dynamite \u2014 in theory, most of the whale bits would be blown into the ocean, and anything remaining on the beach would disintegrate quickly or get cleaned up by scavengers. The planned explosion became a town-wide event, with people gathering along the shores to witness it, but they got much more than they anticipated. Blasted whale blubber flew across the sky in the wrong direction and rained down on the bystanders.<\/p>\n The event gained widespread notoriety, with footage of it becoming an early viral internet video and also inspiring the Sufjan Stevens song, “Exploding Whale.”\u00a0More importantly, the incident served to propel researchers to find better ways to deal with future beached whales (today, they are generally left alone wherever they are to decompose). The Exploding Whale Memorial Park is not actually at the site of the explosion and isn’t even on the ocean, but it was named as such in 2020 as a tribute to the infamous event.<\/p>\n