It’s windy out and the clouds are a bruised, luminous purple not found anywhere, really, except the sky. Thunder rumbles across the bay from Eureka and Greta de la Montagne emerges from the car with eyes to the ground. She promptly spots a clump of plantain. Smashing a leaf between her thumb and fingers she […]
Amy Barnes
Posted inStories
Theater Kids
Arcata Playhouse founders Jackie Dandeneau and David Ferney met as young actors touring the Canadian Fringe Circuit in the summer of 1995. The story goes that her sketch comedy troupe crashed his comic acrobatic troupe’s show in Edmonton. After that first encounter, “I chased her around the world. Literally,” says Ferney. They eventually moved to […]
Posted inWedding Feature
Gifting Outside the Big Box
It’s nice to think a wedding gift might hold the same potential for permanence as a marriage. In our break-and-replace society, this notion is challenging at best. However, if carefully considered, the items on your bridal registry will put you on course for building a practical and enduring domestic armory. We’re not just talking housewares. […]
Posted inNews
Pit Boys
“I’m gettin’ bloody here!” The meat arrives It’s 7:25 on a foggy Fortuna morning and it’s quiet but for the beep, beep, beeping of the Ayers delivery truck reversing alongside the volunteer fire department. The driver parks and, using a hydraulic lift, removes 47 cardboard cases of beef from the back of his truck. Don […]
Posted inStories
Home Track
“Here you go, darlin.” The waitress sets a BLT and fries in front of Rod Kausen and returns to the kitchen for a bottle of ketchup. Bacon hangs lackadaisically from neat bread triangles. “You don’t mind if I eat?” Kausen asks. We’re meeting on what Kausen calls his “busy day off.” He wears a lot […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Just Holler, ‘Pull!’
The sun is shining as I tuck my Subaru into the row of jumbo pick-up trucks inhabiting the parking lot of the Humboldt Trap and Skeet Range. A distant slice of ocean reclines beyond the airport runway, and the noisy crack of shots fired smacks against the mountains that hem McKinleyville to the coast. Staffed […]
Posted inStories
Grand Dame
Joan Schirle leaves her shoes at the door of the classroom and travels across the airy, cool studio in a pair of black sweatpants. Her MFA students are settled along the east wall. The sun shines on their backs through the tall windows of the 100-year-old building. Schirle situates herself in the center of the […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Lone Star Cookbook
Barefoot in a cotton dress, the seventh generation of Kneeland’s Lone Star Ranch greets me at the farmhouse door. Named after her great-great-grandmother, 3-year-old Ora Sizemore’s family has lived and worked on this land since the mid-1800s. The journey east to Lone Star Ranch from Eureka takes more than an hour on rough and twisty […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Mush!
“You’ll want to hang on for dear life,” Sara Borok says, handing me a helmet. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” We’re going on a training run with the Northern Humboldt Sled Dog Team. Borok, a local dog trainer and canine fanatic, says mushing must be in her DNA, and admits that as a […]
Posted inStories
The Old Steeple
Paul Beatie was standing in the kitchen when his life took a dramatic turn. “I was making coffee and my wife was on the computer in the other room, and she starts swearing, [yelling], “You’ve gotta come see this! The church is for sale!” The 115-year-old building came with a permit for live concerts, so […]
Posted inWedding Feature
And a Sense of Humor
I recently read a wedding article that declared, “If you follow these steps, you’re sure to have the wedding of your dreams.” I’m calling bull. No amount of planning will save you from potential nuptial disaster. Before you even start with the Googling and Pinteresting, brace for the connubial stress — there will be drama. […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Fortuna on Ice
Nobody here wants to get out of bed. It’s an entirely reasonable approach to the rain, the wind, the dark and the looming holiday stress. Well, listen up, fellow blanket dwellers. The good people of Fortuna have given us reason to emerge from our soft furnishings: ice skating. Stormy out? No problem. The rink is […]