Cover Story
By the Numbers:
As California emerges from its “peak” wildfire season, the state has managed to avoid its recent plague of catastrophic wildfires. So far in 2022, the fewest acres have burned since 2019. State Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said California had “a bit of luck” with weather this summer. Although enduring yet another drought year, much of the…
Music Tonight: Thursday, Dec. 15
Oryan Peterson-Jones is playing a solo set of primitive Americana guitar music at the Humboldt Bay Social Club this evening at 6 p.m. This free show ushers in a new era of live music at the club, where such events have been sparse for the last couple of years because of you know why. An…
Mentor Condor 746 Being Moved Due to Bird Flu Concerns
The first California condor in more than a century to land on the North Coast arrived by plane March 25 from an Idaho breeding facility. For nearly a year, the 7-year-old male known as No. 746 — with the nickname Paaytoqin, which in Nez Perce means “come back” — has helped raise the eight condors…
Study: Paid Family Leave in California Keeps Women in Jobs
If you work in California and your sister is undergoing cancer treatments, or your spouse gets knee surgery, you might be able to get paid while you take time off work to care for them. It’s a less well-known part of California’s paid family leave benefit, which also covers new parents who leave work to…
NCJ Preview: Fires, Boarding School Legacy, Cartoon Controversy and More
This week we’re recapping the cover story on the year in wildfires and a story about Harvard University holding hair samples from Native children who attended boarding schools. We’re talking about reader responses and our editorial decision making over a cartoon some felt was anti-Semitic. We’ve also got a birding hot spot in an unlikely…
Commercial Crab Season Delayed
The commercial Dungeness crab season has been delayed until at least Dec. 31 in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties due to poor meat quality, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The opening date is pending another round of testing, a news release states. “If results indicate good quality, the fishery will…
Karuk Sacred Lands Legislation Moves Forward
A little more than one year after being introduced by North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman, the Katimiîn and Ameekyáaraam Sacred Lands Act has passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee, bringing a nearly decade-long effort by the Karuk Tribe to once again care for these lands one step closer to fruition. The 1,200 acres…
Harvard Announces Return of Native Hair Samples
Tucked in hundreds of envelopes is the hair cut from Native children as they arrived at boarding schools. Hidden away for nearly 100 years in the recesses of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, the collection of hair samples offers tangible evidence of the trauma of assimilation. According to the hygiene practices of the day,…
Alive and Kicking
I’ve been thinking about the stage a lot lately, and live music in general. The last time I played a live show (before this year) was Sept. 11, 2017, when I played guitar for a krautrock-influenced jazz group that my friends and I threw together to open for my buddy Mike Dillon’s band. It was…
Buddha’s Fists in Chicken Coops
Chayote, or Buddha’s fists squash as we call it in Chinese, is a thin-skinned squash. Some are smooth and others are prickly. I’m ecstatic to share some of my harvest this year and have given over a dozen of the sprouted squash for friends to plant next year. Chayote is a prolific producer in Humboldt.…
Arts! Arcata
Celebrate the visual and performing arts in Downtown Arcata during Second Friday Arts! Arcata. Enjoy a lively night market of local art displayed in downtown stores. This month, local art vendors will be set up in the center of the plaza, which will also be a beer garden featuring live music. Thank you for supporting…
Ferndale to Whoville
Wading through the gaggle of eager children and on-the-precipice-of-composed parents for Ferndale Repertory Theatre’s Seussical the Musical is part of the joy and laughter of this production. A newcomer to town may have thought the entire city in cahoots with the theatre to set the perfect scene for the Whos to peek around the alley…
The Elf on the Shelf is Begging You Not to Put Him Out This Year
That time of year already? Ha, seems like only yesterday you stuffed me in here with the Christmas stockings. Not that I mind! In fact, if I’m totally honest, by the end of the first week on display, I’m praying for the oblivion of the bottom of the decoration tub, buried under layers of suffocating…
The Walmart Picnic Table Effect
A long-held belief in the world of birding is that when a rare bird is reported at a specific location, birders who flock to the spot to see it find other rare birds, attracting even more birders, who then find — well, you get the idea. This phenomenon, known as the Patagonia Picnic Table Effect,…
Storms and Steelhead in the Forecast
With the late-fall king season all but wrapped up on the coast, it’s time to turn our attention to winter steelhead, the crown jewel of the North Coast. With plenty of water in the rivers and more on the way, the excitement for the impending run-start is palpable. There’s been a smattering of steelhead caught…
Badass Santa
VIOLENT NIGHT. I set out, it my usual, aimless, addle-pated way, to construct a themed column welcoming anew the season of Christmas and, of course, Christmas movies. We have before us Spirited, the Christmas Carol musical comedy directed by Sean Anders (one of the handful of credited writers and directors allowed to make mainstream comedies)…
Accountable
In the Nov. 17, 2022 issue, we ran a cartoon depicting Shlomo Rechnitz with a laundry list of his specific offenses as owner of Brius Healthcare, the skilled nursing corporation through which he has funneled tens of millions of dollars to other companies he owns, while providing patients with substandard care. Specifically, the cartoon points…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky wrote, “To be free, you simply have to be so, without asking permission. You must have your own hypothesis about what you are called to do, and follow it, not giving in to circumstances or complying with them. But that sort of freedom demands powerful inner resources,…
