“Hey hippie” was the tongue-in-cheek greeting on the electronic sign giving directions to the turn off on the Samoa peninsula to the Zerlang & Zerlang Boat Yard on Saturday, June 20. This was the first hint that the launching ceremony of the rebuilt sailing vessel Golden Rule was going to be a special mix of […]
history
Posted inNews
Local History… Biker Dude Style
A camera crew made its way through Old Town Eureka today, filming American Ride, a television show that showcases local history. Brooke Redmon, the show’s production manager, said the premise of program is basically to follow Stan Ellsworth, “a big, burly, biker dude” who happens to be a former high school history teacher, as he rides […]
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Returned Artifacts Come With Poisonous Problems
The Hoopa Tribal museum is host to hundreds of cultural artifacts, but many among those returned to the tribe after a law passed in the 1990s made it easier for Native American communities to get their property back are dangerous to handle. During the 19th and 20th centuries, archaeologists, collectors and museums doused Native American […]
Posted inStories
Backyard of Boats
Cody Hills leans back in the stern of the small boat owned by Humboldt Baykeeper, which is zipping north through the Eureka channel of Humboldt Bay. He looks as relaxed as if he were reclining on his living-room couch. Around him the water crinkles and winks, like smoothed-out foil gift wrap. Two frothy white tracks […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Open Lighthouse
Head out to Trinidad Head today for a rare public glimpse of the Trinidad Lighthouse — a treat for people who love lighthouses and/or hate crashing into rocks. The lighthouse is changing hands — the Coast Guard is transferring the property to the Bureau of Land Management — with a ceremony today featuring docent-guided tours […]
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Blue Lake Rancheria Chairwoman Honored
It’s been 30 years since the Blue Lake Rancheria regained its federal status, and 20 years since Sylvia Daniels — who was instrumental in the rancheria’s resurgence — died. By the late early 1980s, the Blue Lake Rancheria hadn’t been recognized by the federal government for nearly 20 years, according to a Times-Standard article at […]
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Renewal
The clear winter sky deepens as night creeps upon Woodley Island, that marina-festooned dab of land in Humboldt Bay closest to Eureka’s mainland. The calm water, catching the last light, grows stripes of gold, blue and orange. Against distant spits the ocean thrums. A pair of Canada geese honks by, a gull swoops with a […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Fall of the Khmers
Empires always fall. After 200 glorious years (the Pax Romana), the Roman Empire took another two centuries to decline into obscurity. Despite his boast of an empire that would last 1,000 years, Hitler’s Third Reich collapsed at the end of WWII. The British Empire, on which “the sun never set,” surrendered to the reality of […]
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Jack Mays
The ghouls, scalpels clutched in their gnarl-boned fists, hover over the operating table upon which Jack Mays, chest rent open, twists in torture. “After this procedure,” the ghouls gloat, “you’ll live another day and a half!” That’s one imaginary scene for a cartoon that Mays, the revered and feared longtime Ferndale artist and editorial cartoonist, […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Ben Kelsey: Arcata Founding Father, Trail Builder, Indian Killer
Last summer, when I first encountered the Kelsey National Recreation Trail which runs east-west across the north side of the Marble Mountains, I thought, “I just hope this isn’t the same murdering scoundrel Kelsey who helped found Arcata.” Hope on. The trail is indeed named for Ben Kelsey, one of the leaders of the infamous […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Rise and Fall of Dyerville
This year marks the centenary of the completion of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad link between Eureka and San Francisco. The four-span bridge across the Eel River, just 40 miles south of Eureka, is a picturesque reminder of the once and no-future railroad. Driving south, as you approach the Honeydew/Founder’s Grove exit, look to your left. […]
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Treacherous Maw
It’s a calm, blue-sky day out here on the north jetty — the sort of day when the sun’s heat actually reaches the skin. The wind is slight. The ocean’s a quiet rumple in the Humboldt Bay entrance channel, between here and the south jetty — moving just enough to elicit languid dingding-dingdinging from a […]