It had been dubbed the flood of the century, when the rain came down in sheets in 1955 and Humboldt County’s rivers rose to gobble homes and towns. Nine years later, it happened again, but worse. By the start of December 1964, Humboldt was already wet. A series of storms in November had left the […]
Slideshow
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Stand Down
To “stand down” in combat is to take a recuperative break from the action. Events such as the North Coast Stand Down, held Oct. 3 through Oct. 5 at the Humboldt County Fairgrounds, offer respite and help for veterans engaged in the battles of civilian life: coping with service-related trauma, homelessness, joblessness and more. The […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Pretty Fly
You may have noticed those giant kites in the sky above Clam Beach and wondered what’s going on out there. It’s kiteboarding, also known as kitesurfing. It’s similar to wakeboarding or waterskiing, but instead of being towed by a boat, you are pulled along by a giant, steerable, wind-borne kite. “Kiting is like rubbing your […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Faces of Humboldt Photo Contest
What’s in a Face? All five senses dwell there, competing for the mind’s attention. Your emotions are most acutely expressed by the twitch of your cheek and brow muscles. The face is a translator, making each of us fluent in the universal human language. You wear your history on your face — the blessings and […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
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 […]
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The GPU
There are no two ways about it, Humboldt County is a unique place, says Kevin Hamblin. The county planning director is sitting in his office off H Street in Eureka on a recent afternoon, his window propped open a few inches to let in some fresh air and the sound of pouring rain. Many people […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
King of the World
Stands of manzanita and groves of knobcone and sugar pine grow within sight of the ocean. Redwoods are nearly absent. Golden eagles ride the thermals along the ridges, and you can find rattlesnakes right down to the edge of the beach. All this makes exploring the King Range National Conservation Area a unique experience in […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
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, […]
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Conflicting Reports
Shortly after Sandra Lingle moved to Eureka from San Diego 32 years ago, something made an impression. “I saw somebody walking their dog at 11 o’clock at night — a woman — and I was thrilled,” she recalled last week. To Lingle, the sight reinforced that she’d moved to a safe place, a community where […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
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 […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Humboldt Outside
With December comes the freeze. Moisture settles as fluff on the high peaks and passes, slicks roads and parking lots, frosts rooftops and windshields and, on occasion, bounces pellet-like onto the coastal landscape. Night-dark comes early; headlights barely pick out that elk herd clustered on the highway shoulder, or the thick-furred bear racing across a […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
Ruins
Pictures of decay — abandoned structures slumping to ground, engulfed in flora or proudly, rustily erect — are a trope now, but that’s OK. They’re fascinating. They combine history, our reverence of engineering feats, our fears of death and erasure. We get to rubberneck at a slow moving train wreck — nature and time joining […]