California blacktail deer rifle season opened on Aug. 25 in zone "B4" (all lands west of the Eel River), but most of the land in that zone is privately owned. Now, many sportsmen and women are gearing up for the season opening of zone "B1" — lands that lie east of the Eel River — […]
Life + Outdoors
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$92 million question
Money is often on the minds of the Yurok Indians, but that’s usually because there isn’t enough of it to go around. In addition to being California’s largest tribe, it is also one of the state’s poorest. And with the tribe’s natural resources, once abundant, now facing an uncertain future, the Yurok can’t just wait […]
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Bye Bye Barstow?
Prospects were bleak for the Big Lagoon Rancheria on Tuesday afternoon, over there in Sacramento, where the state legislature was wading through 200-some bills on presumably the last day of its 2007 regular session and nary a one of the bills contained anything whatsoever to do with a Barstow casino. Who knows, maybe some last-ditch […]
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Showtime
Last month, I was in New York and I stopped by my publisher’s office to have a chat with my editor. While we were talking, my editor’s boss walked in and told me that she would be in Northern California in September. I asked her if she would like to stop by while she was […]
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Roadside Attraction
Driving to Labor Day destinations amid traffic and road construction can really try one’s patience. So just imagine the lucky drivers who unknowingly happened upon the Four Corners Bake Sale in Whale Gulch last weekend. Instead of rounding the bend and finding more dizziness-inducing roads, they found a welcoming committee of Whale Gulch locals offering […]
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The Weather at CR
Fog hangs like drapery around the outer edges of the campus. The commons is filled with anxious, confident and confused people milling about. It is the first day of classes at College of the Redwoods, and somehow things seem a bit more organized. Registration lines in the Administration Building are being managed (better than emergency […]
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Why do pelicans fly so close to the water?
This photograph by Ron LeValley shows a pelican gliding just above the surface of Humboldt Bay. It is not doing so to spy fish, which is better achieved at a higher altitude, but to take advantage of the so-called "ground effect," also experienced by pilots as they approach a runway. Let us first consider a […]
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Does LSD Kill?
Martin Cotton, the 26-year-old man who died in police custody on Aug. 9 in Eureka, may find himself a permanent resting place in the annals of a medical journal somewhere. Ken Falconer, the doctor who performed Cotton’s autopsy, said on Monday that he and Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager have not quite worked out the […]
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Big in Redway
Who knew that a back-to-the-lander gentleman hunkered down in hippy little Redway for the past 30 years would end up as a feature profile in a major business magazine headquartered at 7 World Trade Center, New York, N.Y.? For being among the top 5,000 U.S.-based entrepreneurs raking in the dough the fastest? The September 2007 […]
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No Metal Allowed
"Ever since the first caveman picked up the first cudgel, went to the front door and smacked the first nosy saber-toothed tiger in the snout, mankind has known the atavistic power and pleasure of the bat." — Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates the World Series Slow pitch softball players in Humboldt County may not exactly […]
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The Road to Digging Dog
A couple of weeks ago, I took the long way home from the Bay Area and drove through Mendocino. Before I left, I made an appointment to visit Digging Dog Nursery, source of all good things in the universe. Well, my universe, anyway. I have been a Digging Dog junkie for years. I keep their […]
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Karuk Leader Arrested
On Monday evening, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department arrested Karuk Tribe Vice Chairman Leaf Grant Hillman in Happy Camp. The previous Friday, Aug. 17, the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s office had filed a felony domestic violence charge against Hillman. Siskiyou County D.A. Kirk Andrus said Hillman, who lives in Orleans, is charged with one count […]