[1] Early European exploration of northwest Western Australia commenced around the Nickol Bay and Port Walcott areas, as colonial settlers established pastoral and pearling industries in the late-19th century.

[citation needed] In 1818, the explorer and surveyor Captain Phillip Parker King, in the Mermaid, charted Nickol Bay.

[5][6] The Norwegian-owned iron barque Solveig carrying jarrah piles for the Point Samson jetty was anchored in Port Walcott when it was wrecked during a cyclone in 1907[7] The Department of Maritime Archaeology lists 14 such shipwrecks in the vicinity, lost between 1868 and 1970.

Landmarks within it include Cape Lambert, Wickham, Jarman Island, Butchers Inlet and the historical town of Cossack (initially called Tien Tsin), the first port in the northwest of Western Australia.

[citation needed] Local magnetic anomalies are reported northward of Cape Lambert, in the approaches to Port Walcott.