Reviews Sharp-eyed readers will likely note the absence of a review of Widows, Steve McQueen’s heist movie, which also appears, from this distance, to be something of a feminist call to arms. I say “appears” because the vagaries of real life prevented me from seeing the thing in time for my holiday-accelerated deadline. I’ll write […]
Section Feature
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Bear Harbor Railroad, 1892-1905
Last week, we followed the saga of the Bear Harbor Railroad from the delivery in 1892 of a “Gypsy” locomotive — what would become Bear Harbor Lumber Company No. 1 — to the early 1900s, when the grandiose plans of lumberman Neff Anderson began to be fulfilled with construction of the mill town of Andersonia, […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Weed for the 1 Percent
Americans have a tendency to take things too far. It’s true. That’s why Christmas decorations have begun to infiltrate department stores before their Halloween counterparts are off the shelves. It’s why large swaths of rainforest have been obliterated so we can have cheap hamburgers. (One might argue that it’s also why we have military bases […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Champurrado
As the weather gets colder, the drinks get warmer. While I do appreciate a good seasonal drink, I’m not talking about pumpkin-spice-anything. It’s time to let atole warm up your heart. For those unfamiliar with atole (pronounced ah-TOH-leh), it’s a corn-based drink made throughout Mexico and Central America. With origins dating back to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
‘I am These People’
I saw the place the Karuk call the center of the world in a painting before going there for real. It was marked with a sleek isosceles triangle, blue magic marker on tinfoil — an emphatic shape that lingered in the mind. Standing before his painting, Brian D. Tripp turned to me in the oaken […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Changing the Landscape
Last week, as wildfires sparked to the south and east of Humboldt County that would soon come to devastate large parts of the state and capture national attention, organizers around the small Klamath River town of Orleans had just finished their fifth annual training to advance prescribed burning — both the skills and the public […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
McKinleyville Water Rates Set to Spike
Some McKinleyville residents are up in arms overp increases in their water and sewer bills. The new rates, which go into effect Jan. 1, will continue to rise each year until January of 2023. About 10 residents appeared at a public hearing held by the McKinleyville Community Services District on Nov. 7 to make their […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Word Play
As a young boy, I lost a classwide spelling bee on the word “broccoli.” My teacher said I spelled it with two ‘l’s (I didn’t, and I will die on that hill if I must). So when Chip Tolentino (Evan Needham) was eliminated on “tittup” in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I empathized. […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Exploring the Historic Sinkyone Wilderness
The first thing I see upon waking is a female elk poking her head into our open van door, a few inches from my husband Barry’s face. I blink. Is this real? The elk wanders off and Barry starts to laugh. “What’s the protocol when a lady elk approaches you?” he asks. We have just […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Interior designer Dorothy Draper said she wished there were a single word that meant “exciting frightfully important, irreplaceable, deeply satisfying, basic, and thrilling, all at once.” I wonder if such a word exists in the Chamicuro language spoken by a few Peruvians or the Sarsi tongue spoken by the Tsuu T’ina […]
Posted inArts + Scene
An Unexpected Crime Thriller
Reviews CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? is based on the autobiography by Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), a real-life biographer who began writing magazine profiles for the likes of Katharine Hepburn in the 1960s and made it to the New York Times bestseller list. It’s a squalid little gem of a film, it’s a tale of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Bear Harbor Railroad, 1892-1905
From May to September on the third Saturday of each month, visitors to Fort Humboldt State Park enjoy free rides behind a couple of veteran steam logging locomotives, courtesy of the Timber Heritage Association. The Falk operated for 40 years from 1884 on, including serving Noah Falk’s eponymous town. The other announces her heritage in […]