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Field Notes

Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Heroes of the Redwoods, Part 2

(February 2, 2023) Last week, I discussed how the Save the Redwoods League (SRL), founded in 1918, was instrumental in the creation of Humboldt Redwoods State Park, in effect protecting the trees forever....

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Heroes of the Redwoods, Part 1

(January 26, 2023) Should our lives be judged by the best or the worst of our actions? With most of us, I suppose it's a bit of a crapshoot, deciding which of our...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Orion and the Pleiades

(January 12, 2023) Winter nights here on Humboldt's coast often bring startlingly clear skies, complete with those bright winter constellations our ancestors knew, loved, feared and mythologized. Even from the streetlights of Old...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Survivor of the Brooklyn

(December 29, 2022) "We live hard, we die hard, and we go to hell!" — Jorgen Greve, sole survivor of the Brooklyn wreck, two years later, in conversation with maritime historian Wallace Martin...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Dinosaurs Died, Mammals Thrived

(December 15, 2022) Ten minutes before a huge space rock — as wide as Humboldt Bay and half as long — barreled through Earth's atmosphere 66 million years ago, ending the Mesozoic...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Eureka's Street Railways

(December 1, 2022) The good old days in Eureka, I've heard, were the 1920s and 1930s, when a family could enjoy a Sunday excursion by streetcar from Old Town to Sequoia Park....

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

One Year, Five Emperors

(November 17, 2022) The current state of the nation is as bad as I've seen it in my lifetime. Threats to democracy abound, from the Capitol riot (aka "legitimate political discourse," according to...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Trouble on the Line: The Reality Part 2

(November 3, 2022) "We know now that the railroad should have gone east to Red Bluff." Dan Hauser, former NCRA executive director, 2022 Last week, we looked at the 1907 decision to route...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Trouble on the Line: The Decision – Part 1

(October 27, 2022) "Only men of the Eel River Line would railroad here: the ordinary railroad man would take one look, collect his pay and disappear to flatland railroading to seek a less...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

The Tuluwat Island Massacre in its Time

(October 6, 2022) Archeologists have determined that Wiyot people occupied Indian Island for at least 1,000 years — possibly much longer — including the village of Tuluwat, one of the several locations where...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

William Carson and his Mansion

(September 22, 2022) "[The Carson Mansion] will stand as a monument to a life of unexampled energy and honest integrity. — Humboldt Gazette, April 25, 1887. It's hard to find anyone who had...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Hesiod: Farmer, Poet, Misogynist

(September 8, 2022) "[Hesiod's] personality behind the poems is unsuited to the kind of 'aristocratic withdrawal' typical of a rhapsode but is instead argumentative, suspicious, ironically humorous, frugal, fond of proverbs, wary of...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Dolos No. 1972 Finds a New Home

(August 25, 2022) "Without the dolosse, we wouldn't have an entrance bar. We wouldn't have commercial fishing. We wouldn't have sports fishing. We wouldn't have ship traffic. We wouldn't have any of that....

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

The Rise and Fall of Klamath County

(August 11, 2022) Living, as my wife and I do, in Old Town Eureka, we're very aware we're on the land of the Wiyot, whose territory once extended from Little River to the...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Island Universes, Part 2

(July 28, 2022) Last week, we discussed how, in 1755, Emmanuel Kant predicted the existence of "island universes" — what we now call galaxies — located at vast distances from our home galaxy,...

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Field Notes / By Barry Evans

Island Universes, Part 1

(July 21, 2022) "We thus observe, that with each successive increase of optical power, the structure has become more complicated and more unlike anything which we could picture to ourselves as the result...

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