Editor’s Note: Five years ago, the North Coast Journal told the stories of heroism, hope, tragedy, strength and survival that took place during the Flood of 1964 to mark its 50th anniversary. Here’s a look back at those accounts as Humboldt County commemorates 55 years since the water rose, forever changing lives and the region’s […]
Heidi Walters
Heidi Walters worked as a staff writer at the North Coast Journal from 2005 to 2015.
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Bigfoot Gets Real
First there’s just cheery bird-chirp amid the sunshine. Then deep breathing, and the video camera takes us into the dark forest. Heavy, deliberate footsteps, crunching sticks, more breathing, menacing music, towering redwood silhouettes that interrupt sprays of light, a few ferns glowing bright … and the beast, walking quickly, then loping, splashing through a creek, […]
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Lincoln’s Hearse
A couple of Thursdays ago at Blue Ox Millworks, some of the cats were sacked out in the sunshine and others inside the office by crackling wood stoves. Bluto, the golden-eyed, bear-faced dog, flopped like a giant, piled-up rug on some unevenly stacked timbers in the yard. Birds were talking. The air was still. At […]
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Danger at McCann
Last month, 24-year-old Samantha Dweck was boating on the Eel River with a group from San Francisco when a strong current under the McCann Bridge sucked her kayak into a bridge piling. The kayak capsized, and the current pinned it underwater against the support. Dweck’s companion in the kayak freed himself, but she was unable […]
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Building Lincoln’s Hearse
Some of the cats are sacked out in the sunshine and others inside the Blue Ox Millworks office by crackling wood stoves. Bluto, the golden-eyed, bear-faced dog, flops like a giant, piled-up rug on some unevenly stacked timbers in the yard. Birds are talking, the air is still, it’s an early spring in early February. […]
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Mystery and History
It was a perfectly pleasant party (we were told we were in New Orleans). Sure, the ballerina Ykatarina Chislova and burlesque dancer Lydia Thompson seemed out of sorts with each other — Ykat (pining for her dead duke, and not the paranoid live Grand Duke Alexei) calling Lyd (was she in fact a British spy?!) […]
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Don Clausen Dies
Ferndale native and former North Coast Congressman Don Clausen has died. He was 91. Clausen, a World War II veteran and a Republican who served from 1963 to 1982 in the U.S. House of Representatives, was described in a 2013 Santa Rosa Press Democrat story celebrating his 90th birthday as an ambidextrous baseball player (he […]
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On the Klamath dams front
Former Oregon state senator Jason Atkinson has co-produced a new documentary about the conflict between users of the Klamath River and how they finally hashed out the historic Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement to take out four dams and restore salmon and other habitat. The agreement awaits Congress’ approval. The film, by Atkinson and filmmaker Jeff Martin, […]
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Survey your sins
Ah, the magical storm drain. Alligators live down there, we know, and escapees, and gourmand rats — fantastical beings swimming around in lurksome joy. Plus, of course, all that junk you’ve let wash into it, too: pet poop, cigarette butts, wrappers, caps, oil, chemicals and other detritus that drifts from fingers, drips off cars and […]
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Goodnight, Korbel
Jan. 22, 2015. Late afternoon sun brightened the red-blonde bundles of lumber stacked along the fence line and the large, pale-yellow mill sheds beyond. The scent of fresh-sawn wood permeated the air. A bright red truck loaded with more lumber emerged from the shadows into that golden light, squeezing through the narrow concrete frame of […]
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The Faces of Obamacare, A Year Later
Back in March, when we first reported on the Affordable Care Act’s impacts on several individuals and providers in Humboldt County, we came away with a mixed picture of relief and frustration (“Faces of Obamacare,” March 6, 2014). Some folks were able to get health insurance after being previously denied or unable to afford it, […]
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We Mostly Flunk
We’re a (mostly) sad, bad, hackalung lot up here in Northern California. According to the American Lung Association, “Progress in the fight against tobacco use is at a standstill in California and in most cities and counties in the North Coast …” The association released its annual State of Tobacco Control report today, which shows […]