
today
8:30 a.m. Audubon Society Field Trip See Event Description
read >9 a.m. Arcata Farmers' Market Arcata Plaza
read >9:30 a.m. Discovery Walk: Unknown Waterfront See Event Description
read >9:30 a.m. Manila Dunes Restoration Manila Community Center
read >10 a.m. Manila Dunes Guided Walk Manila Community Center
read >10 a.m. Library Book Sale Humboldt County Library
read >10 a.m. Dia de los Muertos and Mexican Folk Art Sale Private Eureka home
read >10 a.m. Final Arcata Farmer's Market Arcata Farmers' Market (off the plaza)
read >11 a.m. Donlin Foreman Dance Workshop Dell'Arte
read >2 p.m. Humboldt Coastal Nature Center Draft Trails Plan Walk Stamps House
read >5 p.m. Bati Zado and Show Redwood Raks World Dance Studio
read >6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Ali Chaudhary (jazz duo) Libation
read >6:30 p.m. Not Evil, Just Wrong Humboldt Area Foundation
read >7 p.m. Guitar Stan (country) Old Town Coffee & Chocolates
read >8 p.m. Guitar Orchestra of Barcelona Arkley Center for the Performing Arts
read >8 p.m. Stones in His Pockets Arcata Playhouse
read >8 p.m. A Christmas Carol North Coast Repertory Theater
read >8 p.m. Donna Landry Swing Dance Moose Lodge
read >8 p.m. North Coast Wind Ensemble Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU
read >8:30 p.m. The Last Minute Men (international) Cafe Mokka
read >9 p.m. Ian McFeron Band (folk rock) Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. The Michael Paul Band WAVE @ blue lake casino
read >9 p.m. The Generatorz (classic rock) Central Station Cocktail Lounge
read >9 p.m. Taxi Bear River Casino
read >9 p.m. VJ Itchie Fingaz Pearl Lounge
read >9 p.m. Jack Ruby Presents + Blue Street + Acufunkture (DIY rock) Jambalaya
read >9 p.m. 2nd Annual Scorpio Bash The Red Fox Tavern
read >10 p.m. Music by DJ Sidelines
read >10 p.m. DJ Icy Hot Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >10 p.m. Jemimah Puddleduck (rock) Humboldt Brews
read >10 p.m. White Manna + Midday Veil + The King Salmon Duo (rock) Jambalaya
read >11 p.m. Radio Moscow (psychadelic blues) + Mosquito Bandito (one-man surf/garage) The Alibi Lounge and Restaurant
read >previous columns
Oct. 30, 2008
What's The Problem With Bullfrogs?
One sign of a healthy pond or wetland is the ...
read >Oct. 23, 2008
Wave Power
Our corner of the world is on the verge of ...
read >Oct. 16, 2008
The Summer Triangle
The Autumnal Equinox is a few weeks behind us, the ...
read >Photos
Humboldt: What's in a Name?
By Barry Evans
The schooner Laura Virginia made history on April 14, 1850, by becoming the first vessel to enter our bay. Captain Douglass Ottinger and his second officer, Hans Buhne, promptly named the bay "Humboldt" after a German naturalist. Three years later, Humboldt Bay gave its name to our county when it was detached from Trinity County. We share the name with two other counties in the U.S. (in Nevada and Iowa), not to mention a dozen cities and towns, many parks, rivers and mountains worldwide, and -- going beyond Earth -- a lunar mare ("sea") and an asteroid.
Who was this German, who was apparently so well known that he earned practically universal acclamation? Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was perhaps the most fĂȘted man in Europe in the first few decades of the 19th century. He was generally applauded as a true renaissance man, someone who took an interest in just about everything and advanced the knowledge of our planet dramatically.
Like Charles Darwin some 30 years later, Humboldt was instructed and inspired by a five-year expedition that started in South America. The 30-year-old explorer and naturalist arrived in Venezuela in 1799, and for the next several years almost no area of knowledge was off-limits to his boundless curiosity. Physical geography, botany, meteorology, astronomy, geology, anthropology: He took an interest in everything around him. He even set the record at the time for altitude, climbing to over 19,000 feet on Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
Upon his return to Europe, laden with thousands of hitherto unknown specimens of flora and fauna that he had collected, he began the 21-year task of publishing his findings in 30 encyclopedic volumes. In between writing, he led a scientific expedition to Russia, he served as a diplomat on behalf of Louis Philippe, the last king of France, he taught other budding scientists and he championed the new science of terrestrial magnetism -- that is, defining the Earth's magnetic field. He is one of the founders of modern geography.
So for Ottwell and Buhne, their choice of the name of our bay was an acknowledgment of not just one of the finest scientists anytime, anywhere, but of someone possessed by the same spirit of curiosity and adventure as themselves.
Barry Evans is an author and recovering civil engineer living in Old Town Eureka. His book "Everyday Wonders: Encounters with the Astonishing World around Us" led to a four-year stint as a commentator on National Public Radio. He welcomes comments at barryevans9@yahoo.com



















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