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September 21, 2000
Return
to Indian Island
The sun shone on the
calm waters of Humboldt Bay last week as the tour boat Madaket
cruised the shoreline. California Coastal Commissioners were
taking a break from their meeting in Eureka to see the physical
realities behind some agenda items they would soon be considering.
As the boat cruised under the Samoa Bridge approaching Indian
Island, commissioners sipped their drinks, listening with polite
interest as Captain Leroy Zerlang gave a brief history of the
bay -- beginning in 1806, the year it was discovered.
That comment brought
a wry smile to the faces of two others on board that day, Cheryl
Seidner and Leona Wilkinson, direct descendents of the only known
survivor of the 1860 Indian Island Massacre -- an infant boy
named Jerry James. The two women know that the "history"
of Humboldt Bay actually began many years before 1806. They are
members of the Wiyot tribe, the original inhabitants not only
of Indian Island centuries before 1806, but all lands surrounding
Humboldt Bay from south of Rio Dell to north of McKinleyville
and inland to the area east of Blue Lake.
Seidner, chairwoman
of the Wiyots, did not dwell on the massacre that day but on
her tribe's plans to reclaim the island as a site for redemption
and reconciliation. She informed the commissioners of the purchase
in March of a 1.5-acre parcel on Indian Island for $106,500.
The land, a cluttered and abandoned boatyard, is ironically the
exact site of the atrocity that occurred on Feb. 25, 1860 when
white men, armed with hatchets and bowie knives, crossed from
Eureka and murdered all those on the island, 188 Indians, mostly
women and children..
"It's not the
fact that it's the massacre site which makes it sacred. The whole
island is sacred," she said.
Raising money to re-establish
a foothold on the island hasn't been easy, Seidner said. The
tribe has been seeking help from throughout the state and county.
She tells of one night when she made her plea to a meeting of
the National Congress of American Indians.
"I got to plead
my case in front of 1,300 Native Americans from the United States
and Canada. I told them about Indian Island and about our plight.
A friend of mine came up and said, `I have $100 and I challenge
you all to do the same.' We raised $40,000 that day -- $700 in
one-dollar bills alone."
In addition to money
and land, Seidner said, the tribe needs to continue to work on
recovering its culture -- Wiyot basketmaking, dances and language.
There are no native Wiyot speakers left, but the language is
being resurrected from conversations taped by a linguist at Berkeley
in the 1950s. Seidner studies those tapes, trying to piece together
a part of her identity.
Seidner said that
in order to bring about cultural renewal, it is also important
to forgive.
"In Catholicism,
when you get ready for Communion, you have to have a clean heart.
Same here. You have to have a clean heart to start over."
Which is why Zerlang's
comments didn't bother the two sisters. In fact, Zerlang is an
ardent supporter of the Indian Island project and has had cruises
aboard his ship to raise money.
The "historical"
comments spring from an older state of mind, Wilkinson said,
one that still persists.
"We can change
some attitudes for some people, but there are some families --
of the `second settlers' (settlers of European descent) -- that
have been here since 1860. And their thoughts will never change,"
she said. "We're really trying to work towards revitalizing
Wiyot culture -- and that's for all people, not just Wiyot."
7 weeks
and counting
With seven weeks remaining
before the Nov. 7 elections, the campaign season has begun in
earnest. Last week Michael Lampson of Kelseyville, the Republican
challenger to 1st District Assemblyman Virginia Strom-Martin
announced she will not actively campaign, citing lack of financial
resources. Strom-Martin was reelected to a second term in 1998,
capturing 60 percent of the vote. Lampson's name will still appear
on the ballot along with Libertarian candidate, Gail Lightfoot.
In addition to state
and national contests and state initiatives, this fall's election
will feature a number of local races and bond measures. The following
is a list of the candidates and a short description of the measures.
In the coming weeks Journal coverage will focus on several
of the more critical local races.
Blue Lake City Council.
No election. Three candidates for three open seats were appointed
by the council.
Rio Dell City Council.
No election. Two candidates for two seats were appointed by the
council.
City Councils of Trinidad
and Fortuna. Vacancies also filled by appointments following
filing periods prior to spring 2000 elections.
Eureka City Council
Second Ward (being vacated by Jim Gupton). Candidates: Virginia
Bass-Jackson, 38, restaurant manager; Peter La Vallee, 51, director
of the Youth Service Bureau; Duff Huettner, 73, retired director
of Small Business Development Center; and Brent McCoy, 30, retail
sales clerk.
Eureka City Council
Fourth Ward. Candidates: Connie Miller, 56, business manager
(incumbent); and Chris Kerrigan, 20, student, Humboldt State
University.
Arcata City Council
(three seats, including one being vacated by Jennifer Hanan):
Candidates: Susan Brinton, 53, nurse; Donn RJ Filbert, 69, retired
businessman; Dwain Goforth, 47, computer programmer; Ron Hagg,
52, educator; Michael Machi, 50, woodworker; Robert Ornelas,
47, business owner (incumbent); Connie Stewart, 34, office manager
(incumbent).
Humboldt County First
District Supervisor (runoff for seat being vacated by Stan Dixon).
Walt Giacomini, 56, cattle rancher; and Jimmy Smith, 52, fisherman/harbor
commissioner.
Bond Measure N, Peninsula
Union School. $1.08 million for modernization of the building
and refurbishing classrooms.
Bond Measure Q, Fieldbrook
School. $450,000 to match state funds for modernization of classrooms.
Bond Measure P, City
of Arcata Utility Users Tax. Approximately $500,000 primarily
for police staffing.
Samoa auction
complete
The sale of the town
of Samoa took a step forward when the bidding was closed last
week. Sealed bids were due Sept. 15, so theoretically, there's
a buyer. But no one's saying who that might be.
John Rosenthal, the
real estate agent who handled the sale for Realty Marketing Northwest,
said that bidders won't receive notification until Sept. 22.
That is the earliest date Simpson Timber Co., the current owners,
could say who bought the property. And whoever wins the bid will
have a 45-day "due diligence" period during which they
can conduct further studies of the property. All this could further
delay announcement of a buyer -- if Simpson wants.
"It's really
up to Simpson to decide when they want to announce," Rosenthal
said.
Jackie Deuschle, public
affairs manager for Simpson, said Tuesday that she is not aware
of when the new owner's identity will be made public. She was
unable to comment on whether Simpson was satisfied with the winning
bid, although it was clear that the minimum bid price of $1.75
million had been met.
Banned Books
Week
Polish your reading
glasses. Sept. 24-30 is Banned Books Week.
The week is an annual
celebration of the freedom to read whatever we want -- and an
eye-opener about what some people find offensive.
Each year during Banned
Books Week, the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom publishes
a list of books that people tried, sometimes successfully, to
remove from library shelves. This year that list includes The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Color Purple,
which have been challenged for years. The bizarre logic award
goes to the Oachita Parish School Library in Monroe, La., for
removing Barbara Moe's Everything You Need to Know About Sexual
Abstinence because of sexual content.
Schools from New York
to California have tried to remove J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter
series, as the wizardry, violence and smart-aleckism was feared
to be too corrupting to children. And according to the Zeeland,
Mich. school board, there's just too much animal-blood sucking
in them.
For a complete listing
of banned books, stop by Northtown Books in Arcata, where the
staff will be setting up its annual banned-books window display
Saturday -- or visit a bookstore near you.
Cleanup
yields exotic trash
This year's Coastal
Cleanup, held on beaches across the county last weekend, collected
more than 5,000 pounds of trash from Humboldt County beaches
-- and that's with less than half of the 3,000 registered beachcombers
reporting in.
Tim McKay, executive
director of the Northcoast Environmental Center which collects
data on the cleanup in Humboldt County, said Tuesday that it
usually takes a couple of weeks to get the numbers tabulated.
But he did say that
there were some interesting surprises -- like wrappers from Hong
Kong and Japan, and the hull of a boat, which was too heavy for
the poor volunteer to move.
The cleanup day is
important for two reasons, McKay said.
"At one level,
it's a feel-good exercise, something I can do with my kids. There's
a real community aspect to it. But it also has a scientific element,"
he said. "We get a snapshot of what is on the beach locally."
The local data is
all forwarded to the Center for the Marine Environment in Virginia
Beach, Va. There it is analyzed to try and get a comprehensive
picture of where things are coming from.
"And that can
be helpful in trying to stem the tide of the stuff," McKay
said, no pun intended.
The man
who stopped My Lai
Capt. Hugh Thompson,
a true hero of the Vietnam War, is coming to Humboldt County.
In the spring of 1968,
as part of an effort to "root out" resistance to the
American occupation, Lt. William Calley ordered the soldiers
under his command to fire on the assembled unarmed residents
of the village of My Lai. The man who finally stopped the carnage
was Thompson, a helicopter pilot who landed his chopper between
the soldiers and the villagers. Thompson is credited with saving
the few remaining villagers and the residents of three other
villages Calley was to secure.
Thompson will speak
at the Eureka Campus of the College of the Redwoods Sept. 27
and at Humboldt State University Sept. 28. See this week's Calendar
for details.
CDF rents
a chopper
Humboldt County --
as well as the rest of California -- is experiencing prime fire
weather this week, but the California Department of Forestry
and Fire Protection just received reinforcements. CDF hired a
private helicopter, equipped to carry two-man crews and a water
bucket, to respond quickly to the threat of fire.
The measure was necessary
because of the critical fire danger, said Kevin Mancebo, engineer
with the CDF forest fire team stationed in Bridgeville.
Along with record
high temperatures and wind velocities, humidity levels have been
unusually low.
"Right now we've
got a weather pattern that's set up over Northern California
with easterly wind flows that just creates prime fire weather,"
Mancebo said.
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