
today
9 a.m. T-ball Registration Boys and Girls Club Teen Center
read >9 a.m. Apple Solutions for Small Business See Event Description
read >9 a.m. Doris Niles Humboldt County Science Fair Humboldt State University
read >10 a.m. Annual Juggling Festival Humboldt State University
read >6 p.m. Americans for Safe Access Bayview Courtyard Complex
read >6 p.m. Apple Solutions for Small Business Fortuna River Lodge
read >7 p.m. Blondies Open Mic Night Blondies Food And Drink
read >7:30 p.m. A Midsummer Night's Dream Arcata High School
read >8 p.m. Karaoke at Bear River Casino Bear River Casino
read >8 p.m. Karaoke Blue Lake Casino
read >8 p.m. On the Wings of a Dove Carlo Theater (Dell'Arte)
read >8 p.m. Moscow State Radio Symphony Van Duzer Theatre
read >8 p.m. Random Acts of Comedy Arcata Theater Lounge
read >8 p.m. Antigone College of the Redwoods
read >9 p.m. Lisa Baney Cher-Ae-Heights Casino
read >9 p.m. Wig-in-a-Box Karaoke at Aunty Mo's Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >9 p.m. Aftershock Thursdays w/ Da Foot Clan Nocturnum
read >9 p.m. Children of the Sun (blues) Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. Skerdio, Psy Fi Red Fox Tavern
read >9:30 p.m. Woven Roots, Monk (reggae) Humboldt Brews
read >10 p.m. DJ/Thirsty Thursday Central Station Cocktail Lounge
read >previous columns
Jan. 29, 2009
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
By E. Lockhart. Hyperion Books
read >Jan. 15, 2009
The English Major
By Jim Harrison. Grove Press.
read >Photos
Humboldt Wild
By Arleen Olson. Self-published.
By Katherine Almy
"The people here are tenacious," says photographer Arleen Olson about the people of Humboldt County. "They just get something in their heads and they do it -- just like I did this book."
The book is Humboldt Wild, a self-published photography book, a project that Olson describes as "monumental." Starting with no knowledge of the publishing business, she took seven years gathering and winnowing photos, writing text and captions and formatting the book before becoming sole marketer and distributor.
There have been coffee table books documenting the wild beauty of our home in the past, but this one is unique in the way the photographer places the people of Humboldt in that natural setting. Using aerial photography, she shows us the towns nestled in river valleys. The human residents of Humboldt and evidence of their creativity are pictured alongside wilder residents. And, most notably, an entire section is dedicated what Olson calls, "the crazy, wild events that we put on." The book travels from south to north, and in the final section, chronicles a year's worth of special events in the area.
For locals, the book captures familiar, well-loved scenes: an elk ambling in front of Orick's Little Red Schoolhouse, the moon setting behind Pewetole Island or the spruce tree whose roots cascade down an old redwood stump in Arcata Community Forest. You may find your neighbors or friends -- I've spotted a couple of people I know. You may even see yourself!
For non-locals, it begins to explain the mythic quality of life here. But resident or not, you will see, in Olson's images, a perspective of Humboldt that you haven't seen before. You may have been to Blues on the Bay, but have you seen it from Woodley Island with an egret in the foreground. Some of us have seen a spotted owl during Godwit Days, but only in Humboldt Wild can you see the split second before an owl captures a mouse in its talons. "It took me two years ... I had to go back time and time again," Olson said about capturing that image.
Olson was a woman with a dream, and she persevered until that dream came to fruition. In this way, she is an example of what she believes to be the key to the singularity of Humboldt County. "It's really the people of Humboldt that make it so amazing," she said.
Throughout the month of February, large format prints of Humboldt Wild photographs will be on display at the Morris Graves Museum, downstairs in the Floyd Bettiga Gallery. Olson will be there on Saturday, Feb. 7, from 6-9 p.m. for Arts Alive! to talk about her work, and of course to sign her book.






















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