Cover Story
Reggae Falling
At the end of August, the Mateel Community Center addressed a letter to its supporters, inviting everyone to a Sept. 19 public input meeting and sending shockwaves through Southern Humboldt. “Reggae On The River 2017 failed to meet its budgetary expectations and, for the first time in memory, the production sustained a significant loss,” the…
Eureka Mayor Slams County, Legal Cannabis
The Eureka City Council unanimously approved several hot-button issues on Tuesday night despite an unprecedented amount of pushback from Mayor Frank Jager and a smatter of spirited public comment. The first item to be pulled from the consent calendar for discussion, and the least controversial, was the official swearing-in of Police Chief Steve Watson. City…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, Oct. 18
In Old Town Eureka, L.A.’s pyschobilly band The Rocketz wrap up a U.S. tour at The Siren’s Song Tavern with The Silver Shine all the way out from Budapest. I’m guessing this is their first time in Humboldt, so give ’em a warm welcome. Just $5 gets you in the door, so maybe leave a…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, Oct. 17
Confused there was no Grateful Dead tribute show last weekend? Fear not, as tonight you can hear the Grateful Bluegrass Boys who are at Humboldt Brews at 9 p.m. As the name implies, they give the Dead tunes the bluegrass treatment and feature members of Hot Buttered Rum and the David Thom Band. It’s $10…
Potential Pot Farm Becomes Equine Therapy Center
Savanah McCarty, founder of the nonprofit Wild Souls Ranch, is preparing to move six horses, one pony and a whole lot of tack from Loleta to Fortuna. The nonprofit, which helps provide at-risk youth with equine-assisted growth and learning opportunities, is working out the terms of a donated piece of property just off of Hillside Drive.…
Willow Creek Man Killed in Truck-Horse Collision
A Hoopa man traveling northbound on Country Club Road in Willow Creek struck and killed a horse and its rider Sunday night. Timothy Robert Ulrich, 50, was crossing a bridge approaching Seeley McIntosh Road in a Ford F150 and failed to notice Kenneth Wayne Brock, 67, astride a horse traveling south in the northbound lane…
Music Tonight: Sunday, Oct. 15
A cool all-ages show is being hosted at Outer Space in Arcata this evening at 7 p.m. with indie-rockers Palehound, on the road supporting their recent second album, A Place I’ll Always Go. It’s only $8 a great place for the under 21 crowd to hang out.
All Aboard: Vintage Train Video
Everybody loves trains. OK, maybe not packed commuter trains. But if you aren’t charmed by the cow catchers on black locomotives or Orient Express-style dining cars from the turn of the century, we can’t hang out. The volunteers of the Timber Heritage Association are out at the Roundhouse in Samoa most weekends restoring regal and…
Eureka Council to Ponder True Ward Map, Watson’s Hiring and Another Chinn Village Tuesday
On Tuesday the Eureka City Council will decide whether to approve new ward boundaries under the city’s True Ward system and whether to move forward with a new transitional housing project spearheaded by Betty Chinn. Included on the city’s consent calendar (items to be passed in one motion without discussion) are a change to the…
Music Tonight: Saturday, Oct. 14
During Arts Alive last weekend I had the privilege of a sneak peek into the Clarke Historical Museum as it underwent its renovation and pairing with Humboldt Made to house the new Eureka Visitor Center, which has its grand opening this afternoon at 1 p.m. It’s a hell of a party for the new center…
Humboldt Hoptoberfest
Summer is gone, Oktoberfest is done and there’s no more beer. Kidding! There is so much beer. So much. And you can continue to frolic in its froth at Humboldt Hoptoberfest, the annual fundraiser for the Blue Lake Education Foundation, at Perigot Park on Saturday, Oct. 14, from 1 to 5 p.m. ($35, $30 advance). How…
Music Tonight: Friday, Oct. 13
Home Cookin’ has been gigging up and down Humboldt County now for more years than need to be mentioned. Comprised of a local supergroup of talent, this band always delights the diners and drinkers at Mad River Brewery, and they’ll be doing just that this evening at 6 p.m. As usual, it’s a free show…
Arts Undead!
Once again, on Saturday evening during the October edition of Arts Alive! Eureka was overrun with gory zombies in search of human flesh and/or brains. Thankfully, they were classic slow zombies and photographer Mark McKenna was able to document their groaning progress through Old Town, where they gnashed their teeth at diners and took selfies…
Campbell Kids
If the losses of Prince, Carrie Fisher and David Bowie last year, and George Romero and Tom Petty this year have taught us nothing else, it’s that we should appreciate our icons — and our loved ones — while we can. So raise your glasses and your chainsaw arms to Bruce Campbell. Celebrate the man…
Gruesome Playground Injuries
Instead of rolling your eyes at another cookie-cutter rom-com, hit Humboldt State University’s Studio Theatre on Friday, Oct. 13 and Saturday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. for Gruesome Playground Injuries (donation). It promises a cliché-free, non-linear story about real love from age 8 to 38.
Music Tonight: Thursday, Oct. 12
Local Americana band Rogues’ Gallery is at The Mad River Brewery Tap Room this evening at 6 p.m. You may have seen this band around as they’ve been staying busy as of late, and catching them for a free show — like tonight’s — is a treat, so stop on by for a pint and…
The Bronze Age
Last week we saw how the three-part division of history proposed 200 years ago — Stone, Bronze and Iron ages — might have been a foursome if the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, had been included. Although copper is relatively abundant and is occasionally found in its pure form, it’s not so useful as a tool…
Invasive Species
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HumBug: October Dragonflies and Butterflies
I started looking for one of my favorite dragonflies, the pale faced clubskimmer (Brechmorhoga mendax), in July. That’s when my files showed them flying along the flat stretches of the river where I see them dipping the tip of their abdomens into the water, depositing eggs. This year the first I’ve seen were in mid…
Amy Stewart, Portland Bound
Amy Stewart is all packed up but not quite ready to go. The author of eight published books, four New York Times bestsellers among them, sips her coffee a stone’s throw from the Old Town Airbnb rental where she and husband Scott Brown, who runs Eureka Books, are staying until they decamp for Portland, Oregon,…
The Limits of Fidelity
Reviews BLADE RUNNER 2049. Lukewarm reception of an arguably perfect thing, based entirely on one’s own predilections rather than on the qualities of said thing, can carry with it some share of guilt or wrongdoing; a sense of having failed the thing more than it has failed you. Such is my quandary with Blade Runner…
What We Get from Oregon
Central Oregon, my friend and I agree, is a little eerie. It’s not the people; it’s the landscape. The land on either side of Interstate 5 is too flat, too barren, its forests mostly commercial timber operations that have been replanted with conifers all the same age, the same height, the same space apart. The…
Carrying Capacity
Editor: In Monty Caid’s column encouraging the use of foods native to our area (“Go Local, Go Native,” Sept. 21), a major point is missed. Our immediate area (say the area where the Wiyot and the Yurok once lived) now has a population many times that of the First Nation peoples before the arrival of those of European origin. As…
Selective Amnesia
Editor: In light of the reported 26 percent increase in crime throughout Eureka (NCJ Daily, Aug. 31), I find it rather curious that there appears to be little or no finger-pointing at the current district attorney by the chronic complainers among, the right wing reactionaries. During the the previous district attorney’s time in office, citizens…
Pity and Fury
The first time I set foot in the Mateel Community Center was in the late 1990s to attend a benefit for a local woman who, it later would turn out, was terminally ill. The venue teemed with people, friends and neighbors who had gathered to provide both emotional support and financial assistance. Toward the end…
Better Protections
Editor: My free-thinking communities of Arcata and Eureka are inadvertently living under the control of the Arcata and Eureka city councils and county board of supervisors’ hidden agenda, which largely supports its special interest groups. Our community members (homeless, or not) are negatively being impacted by those who hold the power. Recent years we have…
Mending the Mateel
When the counterculture — the barefoot, longhaired back-to-the-landers — poured into the hills and valleys of the Mattole and the Eel River watersheds in the 1970s, they needed a gathering place to enfold their new community. At first, they fixed up an old building in Garberville, the Fireman’s Hall, but when that burned down in…
Locally Censored
Editor: Woefully Underreported story #7 is actually a local one: we live in the cradle of the U.S. Navy whose training grounds begin just 12 miles away (“Project Censored,” Oct. 5). Ever-more-powerful and sophisticated weapons are born in our own neighborhood. The comment period on their most recent supplemental Environmental Impact Statement just closed on…
Purple Yam Dim Sum
Autumn. I can feel the warmth of the leftover summer sunlight on my cheeks. The smell of the crisp breeze, the taste of harvest sweetness put me in the mood to create new dishes in fall. In fact, there are a few dishes I’ve enjoyed making when I get together with friends for afternoon tea,…
Stupid is as Stupid Does
Editor: Consonant with your cover feature “Missing Stories” is a missing observation. It is a highly prescient one written in July of 1920 by the prominent newspaper reporter and columnist for the Baltimore Evening Sun, H.L. Mencken: “As democracy is perfected, the office [of the presidency] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of…
We’ll Meet Again
There’s an old saying that goes, “Always leave ’em wanting more.” I say, “When they don’t want any more, always leave.” Well folks, after two years, it’s time for me to let the door hit me in the ass, so to speak. It’s not you, it’s me. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed my…
Clarification
The story “Strumming up a Case” in the Aug. 31, 2017 edition of the North Coast Journal contained inaccurate information regarding the songs that Oscar Leatherman was belting out preceding his May 13, 2016 citation. Leatherman contacted the Journal Oct. 6, some five weeks after publication, to tell us that the song “Fucking on the…
Bowing
Our heads bow over a book Bow and bow again. We take turns reading pages Promising re-covery A loving cloak for raw emotions A shelter in discomfort. Lightning preceded the surprising rain Falling on unripened strawberries, Unfinished pumpkins, silly bright sunflowers Blinking out from the newly grey, quiet light. Puddles emerge on our gravel road…
Paul Rickard’s Plein Air Progress
This month, watercolorist Paul Rickard is staging the last of three successive month-long shows at the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust’s Simmons Gallery. The first focused on the land trust’s properties, while the second presented views from Trinidad. This third exhibition brings together an eclectic assortment of plein-air subjects, all painted on the spot: coastal views…
Sharktober: Part Two
If you lived in Humboldt County in October of 2012, you heard about the encounter. For me, the word came via my cell phone, which blew up with news that someone had been hit and it was bad. Really bad. Rumors abounded on Facebook that the victim had died. Nobody knew who the guy was,…
Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at locations in Arcata. Visit www.facebook.com/artsarcata for more information or call 822-4500. ARCATA ARTISANS 833 H St. Jeff Langdon, photography and sculpture; Michael Edwards, jewelery; Carolyn Jones, fiber work. Wine pour benefits the Breast and GYN Health Project. ARCATA EXCHANGE 813…
Goes Together like Whiskey and Chocolate
These are trying times, friends. And the folks at Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate are swooping in to the rescue with their Whiskey and Chocolate Pairing on Thursday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. ($35, 21 and over). Steve and Amy Bohner of Alchemy Distillery are bringing the hooch. Not all heroes wear capes.
Eureka Visitor Center Grand Opening
Welcome to Eureka. The Eureka Visitor Center hosts its grand opening at its new location, the Clarke Historical Museum, on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 1 to 6 p.m. (free). Pop in to see the new digs and hang around on the block at Clarke Plaza for blues from Earl Thomas and others, a ribbon cutting and…
