Last Wednesday morning, in a remote valley of the rugged Trinity Mountains, a couple dozen volunteers pulled their cars onto the dusty gravel road that dead-ends between the South Fork Trinity River and the Hyampom Airport. “Airport” may be too strong. It’s a landing strip, 1,250-feet high, in the middle of the Trinity National Forest. […]
Ryan Burns
Ryan Burns worked for the Journal from 2008 to 2013, covering a diverse mix of North Coast subjects, from education, politics and marijuana to human suspension, sex parties and amateur fight contests. He won awards for investigative reporting, feature stories and news coverage.
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Smoke Organic
This week’s cover story goes digging around in the contaminated dirt of a trespass marijuana grow site deep in the Trinity National Forest. Last August, law enforcement confiscated more than 5,000 plants at the site, which was likely maintained by five or six men. Only one was arrested — a 21-year-old Mexican man who’s already […]
Posted inNews
Eureka City Council to Issue Weird Non-Apology
In a special meeting Tuesday night, the Eureka City Council will promise to never again do something that it won’t admit to having done in the first place. As it’s phrased in the agenda, the council is scheduled to adopt a resolution “of unconditional commitment to cease, desist, and not repeat past action that is […]
Posted inNews
Co-op Employees to Picket Board Meeting
The clash between North Coast Co-op management and unionized employees continues. Here’s a press release from the union: United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 5 will hold a rally and picket at the North Coast Co-operatives Board of Directors meeting on Thursday November 14th. The rally will highlight the Co-op’s use of union busting […]
Posted inNews
UPDATED: Billboard Company Unleashes Lawyers Who Use Big Words
Looks like the company that owns all those billboards between Arcata and Eureka just recently found out that the Coastal Commission wants them all torn down. It’s response? “You can’t make us!” That’s a rough translation of the comically wordy lawyer-speak contained in from attorney Anthony M. Leones of Miller Starr Regalia on behalf of CBS Outdoor Inc., […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Rules for the Tipping Point
As the Journal was going to press Tuesday night, the Eureka City Council was poised to reconsider the city’s medical marijuana ordinance, a set of regulations that for the past two years has been locked up and ignored like a trapped skunk — dangerous, irksome and waiting to be dealt with. The ordinance was adopted […]
Posted inNews
Fawkes & Friends
A group of anonymous protesters in Guy Fawkes masks just politely rang the doorbell at NCJ HQ and handed us a flier that enumerates the ways our government is trampling on our constitutional rights, and damned if it wasn’t the highlight of our day. “We’re not trying to be intimidating with the masks,” explained Zeppelin-shirt […]
Posted inNews
Arnie Klein Set to Challenge Gallegos in DA Race
His campaign Facebook page has been up for almost two months now, but Arnold “Arnie” Klein is about to make it official: Next Wednesday, after more than four decades practicing law and nearly two years of “retirement,” the 71-year-old attorney will announce his campaign to unseat Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos. Known as a […]
Posted inNews
Tyson’s Back: Eureka Re-Hires Former City Manager as Temp
Former Eureka City Manager David Tyson, who retired last December after 12 years in the position, has been temporarily rehired to help Interim City Manager Mike Knight. With the abrupt exit of Tyson’s successor, Bill Panos, who resigned on Oct. 4 after less than a year on the job, Knight said Tyson has been brought out of […]
Posted inNews
The Nation Examines Pot’s Enviro Impacts via Humboldt County
In the special marijuana-themed Nov. 18 issue of The Nation magazine, reporter Seth Zuckerman chronicles the environmental impacts of indoor and outdoor grow operations here in Humboldt County. Quoting locals such as Friends of The Eel River Executive Director Scott Graecen, HSU lecturer Tony Silvaggio and Arcata City Councilman Michael Winkler, Zuckerman describes the scope […]
Posted inBest Of Humboldt
Best Cathedral from the Glory Days of Timber
At the height of empire, you’ll always find excess (think Caligula). In 1920, the Pacific Lumber Co.’s industrial empire was at the pinnacle of its wealth and power — and Scotia was its capital city. Between 1920 and 1923, the company town’s corporate benefactor erected the Scotia Inn, the Scotia Hospital, the First National Bank […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Stalk Market
On my trip to New York last week I was reminded of two seemingly obvious facts. First, you shouldn’t fly in and out of our recently rechristened “California [Fogbound] Redwood Coast — Humboldt County [Crapshoot] Airport” unless you have a day to spare on either end of your trip. And second, marijuana is everywhere. Like […]