Tom and Kath Collom’s home sits in a short row of similarly pointy-roofed, 1902 saltbox Victorians in a semi-industrial neighborhood just north of Eureka’s Old Town. The bay is close by, as is the first of several bridges inchworming across to the Samoa Peninsula. The houses are cute, their surroundings humble. On a weekday evening, […]
Heidi Walters
Heidi Walters worked as a staff writer at the North Coast Journal from 2005 to 2015.
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Lisa Rossbacher’s First Day on Campus
It was beautifully gray-skied today up at Humboldt State University — just the weather the institution’s new president, Lisa Rossbacher, had been promised she could (happily) expect here in her new home county. After a surprise blast of welcoming horns from the Marching Lumberjacks, Rossbacher hiked around campus on her first official day, meeting staff […]
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Look, an LFL!
That’s a “Little Free Library” to the uninitiated. And, according to our very own master of the field notes, Journal contributor Barry Evans, there’s a new one in town. Evans and his wife, Louisa Rogers, are in fact responsible for the thing, which resides on the Snug Alley backside of the Redwood Curtain Theatre. But […]
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Updated. Our Miss California Contender
Tonight, at the William Saroyan Theatre in toasty downtown Fresno, the winner of this year’s Miss California pageant will be crowned after a buoyant Broadway-themed spectacular. And among the 54 contending young women is one of our own: Humboldt State University kinesiology student Kathryn Faull, Miss Central California Regional 2014. If she wins, she competes […]
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Army Corps Halts Bypass Work
If you’ve driven though Willits lately, you’ve noticed the tan swaths of fill swooping through pasture along the east side of U.S. 101 and the spindly wooden forms revealing the future configuration of the Willits Bypass. Yes, the project’s substantially underway. And yet it continues to be riddled with problems. Most recently, the Army Corps […]
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Call For Info On Humboldt Marten
Have some informed thoughts on what to do about that fluffy, shy, seldom-seen, sharp-toothed critter the Humboldt marten? Perhaps a genetic study you’ve been hoarding, waiting for the right time to haul it out? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife says now’s the time to share. It’s opened a 45-day scoping session to gather yet more […]
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Care Home Operator Appeals Suspension
The operator of Chamberlain’s Residential Care Facility in Eureka is appealing the state’s decision to shut the home down last month and issue a temporary suspension of her license. The suspension will be permanent if the order prevails in court. The state’s order alleged that operator Gina Chamberlain violated numerous health and safety codes, including instances (specifically […]
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Good Fire, Bad Fire
When Thomas Willson was little, his grandmother would send him and his two brothers outside each fall to light fires. “She’d give each of us a book of matches and we’d walk up to the top of the ridge then come back down, lighting fires all the way through the hazel brush,” Willson recalls. “There […]
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Jail Death Investigated: Updated
UPDATE: According to Sheriff’s Lt. Wayne Hanson, the man who died in the jail has been identified as Daren Ethan Borges, 42, of Eureka. An autopsy is scheduled for Saturday. PREVIOUSLY: Officials are investigating the death of an inmate inside the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. According to a news release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s […]
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No More Hornet Guys
At Coast Central Credit Union in Arcata, the newcomers had set up camp outside and were menacing customers. A similar group had taken up inside a shed in Kneeland where a man keeps his lawnmower. Yet another hung around, prickly-humored and uninvited, too close to a home’s window and garden hose. These were the new […]
Posted inStories
Backyard of Boats
Cody Hills leans back in the stern of the small boat owned by Humboldt Baykeeper, which is zipping north through the Eureka channel of Humboldt Bay. He looks as relaxed as if he were reclining on his living-room couch. Around him the water crinkles and winks, like smoothed-out foil gift wrap. Two frothy white tracks […]
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Sundberg Easily Takes 5th
Incumbent Ryan Sundberg has kept his seat as 5th District Supervisor, taking 61 percent of the vote to fend off challenger Sharon Latour. It’s not surprising. After barely securing his first term in a hotly contested race, Sundberg came back this time as not just the locally-grown guy with friends and family peppering the district, […]