Editor’s note: With the Humboldt County Fair marking its 122nd opening day tomorrow, here’s a look back at Peri Escarda’s 2017 It’s Personal column on the annual event, the arrival of which means that summer is once again drawing to an end. Growing up in Humboldt County, there was nothing more exciting than the day […]
Peri Escarda
Posted inStories
Kayaks & Crab
Gill’s By the Bay perches on the edge of the water, nestled between the seawall and the canals that form the community of King Salmon. Since 1990, the Gill family has been operating a popular restaurant here, catering to hungry fishermen and beachcombers. Many are lured from the exploration of tide pools or the tying […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Kayaks and Crab
Gill’s By the Bay perches on the edge of the water, nestled between the seawall and the canals that form the community of King Salmon. Since 1990, the Gill family has been operating a popular restaurant here, catering to hungry fishermen and beachcombers. Many are lured from the exploration of tide pools or the tying […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
A Mother Gets Through Graduation Season
As June approached, I opened my mailbox to an assorted collection of high school graduation announcements. Just as it once seemed that everyone I knew was birthing children, it now seems that everyone I know is graduating children. How well I remember the chaotic pace of the senior year. Eighteen years of parenting coalesce down […]
Posted inStories
Shipwrecks, Rivers and Railroads
Picnicking is an old-timey pleasure that never goes out of fashion. Perhaps that’s because enjoying a meal upon a cheerful blanket is a must-have image in any couple’s romantic montage. Picnics also appeal in the later stages of the relationship, when the new parents discover the exhaustion of wrangling children into restaurant booths. Not that […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Making Amends on the Plaza
I grew up at the base of Fort Humboldt, in the cul-de-sac right across the street. As a child, I played over every inch of that land, including the boggy area at the bottom of the bluff. We would lay boards down into the blackberry thickets, moving forward until we were in the center of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
A Year After the Women’s March
Last year at this time, I was preparing for the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. — crossing the country to don my “pussy hat” and raise my fist alongside my 80-year-old mother and my 18-year-old daughter. A loud contingent of people — both in person and on social media — asked me, “What’s the point […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Reluctant Skier
I’m not much of a daredevil, although that hasn’t always been the case. When I was growing up in Eureka, I rollerskated down Buhne Hill and rode motorcycles around Trinity County. But somehow that all changed once I had children of my own. It took just a few mishaps — like the time I fell […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Queen of the 9×13
Merle Love might seem an old-fashioned name but back in her day, my granny was a known rebel. In fact, she was the first woman in her small town of Sedro-Woolley, Washington, to cut her hair into a flapper’s bob and raise her hemline to just below the knees. When her husband turned out to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Bright Lights, Small Town
Growing up in Humboldt County, there was nothing more exciting than the day my parents would announce that we were going to the Fair. They would bundle us kids into the car and make the rambling trek to Ferndale. As we crossed the bridge and headed into the summer fog, I would wait for that […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Sailing on Big Lagoon
Growing up surrounded by fishing families, I regarded the local waterways not as playgrounds but as parts of a great wilderness in which some people risked their lives. And so I scoffed at the idea of taking a recreational sailing class through Humboldt State University’s Center Activities. But my husband is far more adventurous. He […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Still Standing: The legacy of Women’s Grove
The instant I stepped out of my car and into Women’s Grove, I was hit by the scent of rain-soaked earth and redwood bark — a smell that I will always associate with my childhood. My parents would load us into the station wagon and drive us to this grove, where we would tumble out […]