Injustice. That’s what Geneva Wiki and her family have been fighting against for as long as she can remember. Wiki is the great-niece of Raymond Mattz, the Yurok man who refused to pay a fine for gill netting on the Klamath River and successfully appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually […]
News
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Humboldt Hip Hop
The Father They used to call Garth Culti-Vader "The Humboldt Father" because of his supply of ganja clones. Standing tall with his 14-month-old son Taurean between his legs, he grins and says, "Now it definitely has a different meaning." It’s obvious that Garth is a dedicated dad: At this summer’s Reggae Rising, in front of […]
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Tower glower
It started with the cement trucks, trundling day and night up Fickle Hill Road and, five or so miles in, turning onto a dirt road. Or maybe it actually started earlier than the cement trucks — maybe the first real indication, if anyone could have guessed it, that a new cellular communications tower was going […]
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Upward Bound No More
When the noon whistle goes off in Arcata, most people just think it’s time for lunch. But for James Frasche-Russell, a 26-year-old army veteran majoring in computer science and math at Humboldt State University, the whistle brings back bad memories. "It really freaked me out, because that was the get-into-your-bunkers-we’re-being-bombed alarm in Iraq," he says. […]
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Rock and a Hard Place — Independent gold miners fear extinction as a new wave hits the hills
Salmon River (Mining) District. This district, the largest in Siskiyou County, comprises its entire southwestern corner, and includes the drainage area of the Salmon River and its tributaries. Topographically, it is a tangle of mountain ridges separated by precipitous canyons and river gorges. … The main gold-bearing rock belt of the county crosses through the […]
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Teacher’s Prep — Knuckling down for a hectic nine months as the school year starts
Whether welcomed or dreaded, the inevitable return to school arrives next week for thousands of elementary, middle and high school students in Humboldt County. As they approach their first day of class, many kindergarteners and students graduating to middle or high school will surely be anxious about fitting in and finding the bathrooms. For older […]
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‘A Broken Vessel’ — Who was Martin Cotton, and what happened to him?
Martin Frederick Cotton II was not homeless. The 26-year-old man, who died in the Humboldt County Jail on Aug. 9 shortly after a violent confrontation with the Eureka police, always knew that if he was in trouble, the only thing between him and shelter was a call to his father, Martin Fredrick Cotton, who lives […]
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Disorientation Week — Your student guide to housing, transit, surfing and weed
Everyone’s so cool, and one dude’s brought his drum and they’re all just layin’ around in this way cool grove in the forest. Ferns are tickling, the sun’s out — what rain? — like some kind of benevolent blanket of warm glowing pizza dough just soft all over everything, and the grass … the grass. […]
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West End Story — An unlikely union between experimental artists and the City of Eureka
The formula was simple: Empire Squared plus The Placebo plus Synapsis equals a flowering of experimental performing arts in Eureka’s West End. Turns out, the equation was missing only one thing — a permit. In December of last year, the City of Eureka ordered the performing arts collective Synapsis to close its doors to public […]
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Mala Fortuna — What happened to Mex City Auto Detailing?
Fortuna doesn’t always live up to its nickname, “The Friendly City.” In part, that’s because of the way some Fortunans seem to be reacting to demographic upheaval in the area, as the local Latino population balloons. And though many are happy about the city’s changing dynamic, some find it difficult to accept the transformation. One […]
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Murder in Oaxaca — We know who murdered independent journalist Brad Will. Why are his killers still
John Ross, a former resident of Arcata, has been the Mexico City correspondent for the San Francisco Bay Guardian for 22 years. He is the author of eight books on Mexican politics and has lectured extensively on Latin America on college campuses from Harvard to UC Berkeley. His book Murdered By Capitalism takes its title […]
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Last Cowboy Standing — A tale of rodeo culture in Humboldt County
For the rodeo cowboy, speed is everything. A couple of weeks ago, a handful of cowboys gathered at a private arena in Redcrest off the Avenue of the Giants, on a patch of land situated between a forest of tall redwoods and the Eel River. They were there to practice for the upcoming Orick rodeo. […]