The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who drowned in Redwood Creek after a rafting accident Friday afternoon as 33-year-old Jonathan Walsh Mellon, of Eureka. “We’re viewing this as an unfortunate accident,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Ernie Stewart, adding he doesn’t anticipate any criminal investigation stemming from Mellon’s death. According to the sheriff’s office, […]
Outdoors
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Kayaker Drowns in ‘Terrible Tragedy’
A 24-year-old San Francisco woman drowned Sunday morning while kayaking on the Eel River with a group of friends. Humboldt County Deputy Coroner Roy Horton said the woman, identified as Samantha Dweck, originally from Carlisle, Massachusetts, was with a group of about two dozen people that are members of a San Francisco running club that […]
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Birds! Count ’em
You see this little bird? Just chillin’ with her gull thangs? She counts and so do they. Yes, we’re in the midst of the 115th Christmas Bird Count, and birding teams throughout the Western Hemisphere and Antarctica are venturing out to count all the birds they see within a designated sphere. Locally, a couple of […]
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Batten Down the Hatches
The North Coast is about to be battered with bad weather — exciting, we know, and California needs water — but that means dangerous conditions for the outdoors-minded among us. High surf, strong winds and lots of rain are expected to land tonight and continue through late Thursday/early Friday. The National Weather Service issued a […]
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Redwoods by Candlelight
The luminarias held flickering LEDs, not wax candles, but the effect was nonetheless enchanting as hundreds of people traipsed into the dark forest at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park for the 25th Annual Candlelight Walk on Dec. 6. There was food and cider and warm fires. And it was a fundraiser for the park organization, […]
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God’s Country
THIS IS MY HUMBOLDT from Ryan Johnson on Vimeo. Humboldt County’s a beautiful place. This isn’t news. But if you could distill days’ full of beauty from scenic vistas throughout the county into a four-and-a-half-minute experience, there would be a novelty factor, right? Well, that’s what local photographer/handyman Ryan Johnson has done. Johnson, who has […]
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Gets in Your Eyes, Lungs
Every summer it’s the same, it seems: The woods burn, and the smoke settles in heavily over our inland communities. This season, so far, it’s the Happy Camp and July forest fire complexes, and the Oregon fire in Weaverville, clogging skies and lungs — and the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District has been […]
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Wait a Second… Sunset Magazine’s Dubious Geography
If you saw Tuesday’s edition of the Times-Standard, you couldn’t have missed the splashy, above-the-fold cover feature about Sunset Magazine‘s most recent issue featuring Humboldt County on it’s own cover. The hypish piece was “special to the Times-Standard,” and was essentially a story about the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau’s efforts to help the venerable […]
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Bay Trail North: Funded
The California Transportation Commission this week approved $3.1 million in grant funding for the construction of the Humboldt Bay trail between Arcata and Bracut, possibly paving the way for construction to begin next year. Officials described the grant as a “landmark,” and a major step forward for the long-talked about and debated project. Combined with […]
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A Goosenecking Sight at Clam Beach
I suspect I’m not the only Humboldt-er who finds myself meandering down the beach keeping a gentle eye out for seafaring debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami – you know, a skiff, a soccer ball, perhaps a motorcycle? It’s fascinating to think these wayward objects, gone astray in the midst of one of this century’s worst […]
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Squee! thing (Or, Leave the Babies Be!)
Look at this little guy all nestled down in the grass like we can’t see him! We were hiking through the hills outside of Ettersburg when we almost stepped on him, he was so still and quiet. He’s not going to move until his mom comes back. The doe pushed him down into the grass […]
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Supes to Tackle GPU Monday
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors will begin Monday the process of reviewing changes to the Conservation and Open Space Element of the General Plan Update proposed by its planning commission. After the Supes sent the element to the Humboldt County Planning Commission for review in the beginning of the year, the commission made some […]