Statewide Strike
Bohn Investigation
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It’s Flash Fiction Season 2026
Here’s the story in 99 words: NCJ’s 99-word Flash Fiction Contest is on. Send up to three entries in the body of an email (no attachments or links) to fiction@northcoastjournal.com with your name and contact information (no pen names) by midnight Oct. 31.
Dainty dramas, bite-sized adventures, flits of fantasy, micro-mysteries, half-pint hauntings, brief romances and scraps of science fiction are all welcome in 99 words or fewer (title not included). We’ll read your original fiction and run the winner and top tales in the Dec. 3 issue.
No poetry and — sorry, robots — no AI-generated copy. Get typing, Humboldt.
The Latest
Statewide Strike
Bundles of purple tinsel, purple inflatable wands and purple signs rose into the air as cars passed by a large group of Service Employees International Union members gathered on Fifth Street in Eureka last week. …
5 Tax Measures are on the California Ballot. Here’s How to Make Sense of Them All.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. California voters are being asked whether they want to keep taxing the incomes of the rich. And they’ll be asked whether to start taxing the accumulated wealth of…
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Crash Course
Happy Halloween, Humboldt. Last year we introduced you to the sweetly spooky work of comic artist Liz Valasco on our cover (“The Seeker,” Oct. 30, 2025). After seeing what she and the Journal’s Setlist columnist…
Bohn Investigation
For the second time in a year, Supervisor Rex Bohn has outed himself as being the subject of a county investigation involving his conduct with employees, following much of the same approach to address the…
The Candyman Can
As is often the case during this time of year, I was watching a horror film recently — nothing special, a French rip-off of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Dracula movie — when I found myself…
An Ugly Turn at Smalls Fusion Comfort
Editor’s note: This story includes bigoted and misogynistic quotations. The story spread quickly online and by word of mouth on Oct. 20, after a member of the Humboldt Foodies Facebook group posted screenshots from Smalls…
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Music + Entertainment
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Fitness for Birders
You might think of birding as a pursuit of pleasurable relaxation, a gentle, spiritual connection with nature that reduces stress and boosts feel-good hormones. It’s not. It’s a physically and emotionally challenging activity that demands…
Tips for Recent Empty-Nesters
Greetings Villagers, I’m sure this missive must come as a surprise. No doubt you have heard the distant wails echoing from my cliffside castle laboratory and wondered if I, Professor Ballantine, was preparing to unleash…
Longitude and the Prime Meridian, Part 2
“It might be expected that plumb lines, set up in various locations, if extended downward, would all pass through a single point, the center of Earth. But this is not the case.” — Why the…
Transparency vs. the Truth
YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING. Although celebrity and notoriety have, in this age of commingled and corrupted meaning where interpretation is truth, become functionally one and the same, they remain distinct, even antithetical. Elizabeth Holmes, the…
Movie Tonight: Wednesday, Oct. 28
NAZA is a 2026 documentary about the ongoing genocide in Palestine inflicted by the Israeli government and military and abetted by our own government and private arms industry. Produced by the Guardian newspaper in Britain,…
Eat + Drink
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Music Tonight: Tuesday, Oct. 27
Lately, I have been filling this space with a repeated suggestion for the reader to check out Strange Meeting at the Basement after 7 p.m. Other writers might get worried that their readers have grown…
Diane Woodward
Diane Woodward treasured her family and friends and took great pride in the many friendships she developed in her hometown of Ferndale. She was a gregarious, fun-loving person with a big personality and a generous…
Music Tonight: Thursday, Oct. 22
Caveman Dave is a one-man band whose main instruments are guitar and vocals. Therecordings I listened to feature some programmed backing rhythm tracks and both acoustic and electric guitars, along with hybrids like the cigar…
The Eureka Chinatown Monument
From down the block on Sunday, Oct. 11, it sounded like walking toward any Chinatown on a festival day: the snap of firecrackers, clanging cymbals and rattling drums growing louder along the approach to the…
Huffman Town Hall
During a packed town hall at the Sequoia Conference Center in Eureka on Monday, North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman began by giving his dismal overview of the state of affairs on Capitol Hill before taking…
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Letters & Opinion
‘How Big is Your Tribe?’
Editor: It may be too late to respond to the opinion piece “The Good Ones”…
Community Connection
Editor: Please join us for a Centro del Pueblo fund raising event on Wednesday, Nov.…
The Bears
Editor: I benefited from university instruction from wildlife specialists. I love black bears, from a…
‘Grateful’
Editor: OK, I’m a little slow, or maybe just busy, but definitely behind in my…
‘A Lot to Unpack’
Editor: I’m looking forward to seeing the 2026 documentary NAZA at the Minor on Wednesday,…
Choices for Eureka
Editor: I attended the Humboldt Association of Realtors on Oct. 1 for the Eureka mayoral…
Stand-up Paddleboarding Around Chah-pekw O’ Ket’-toh
After a more than year-long hiatus, one morning in early August, I loaded my stand-up paddleboard (SUP) in the car and drove to Chah-pekw O’ Ket’-toh (Stone Lagoon, Humboldt Lagoons State Park), located on Yurok’s…
Dream a Little Dream
Do you ever wonder why it seems so much easier for Americans to fantasize about an apocalypse than a revolution? Or why we are more attracted to entertainment with visions of post-apocalyptic scarcity and violence…
Longitude and the Prime Meridian, Part 1
“I have been extremely ill used by the gentlemen who I might have expected better treatment from.” — John Harrison, on his struggle to receive the reward for solving the Longitude Problem For centuries, the…
‘Animals’ and ‘Sacrifice’ Catastrophize
ANIMALS. Setting aside, at least for the moment, his acting and his frequently very public private life, let us consider Ben Affleck as director. Making a startlingly surefooted debut with Gone Baby Gone (2007), which…
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The Best of Humboldt
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Granted, choosing — or winning — the Best of Humboldt isn’t a game of chance.…
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Best Farmers Market VendorFocaccia by the PietrinisWhen in Rome … make a colorful Roman hand…
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Best Night Club and Best Place to Shake Your BootyThe BasementLots of night clubs are…
Best of Services
Best FloristPocket of PosiesThis pocket-sized shop holds big things — you’d be forgiven for zipping…
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