A faded VHS cover of the 1987 film.

For anyone worried that Humboldt County might be losing its cannabis clout, fear not: Here comes “Ganjasaurus Rex.”

Disney-owned streaming giant Hulu is celebrating the upcoming stoner holiday of 4/20 with an anthology of documentary shorts — aptly titled “4X20: Quick Hits” — that includes a segment on the low-budget, Humboldt-filmed creature feature from 1987.

Here’s the blurb from Hulu:

“The Legend of Ganjasaurus Rex,” directed by Alex Ross Perry, (“Pavements,” “Videoheaven”), celebrates a Humboldt County cult classic film. Made by local pot growers as an act of protest against the War on Drugs, this “comically dreadful” film was panned by critics as “one of the worst movies of all time,” before becoming a beloved local legend.

And here’s the trailer:

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During my first career as a video store clerk/manager, the VHS copy of “Ganjasaurus Rex” didn’t get rented often, but when it did it was typically brought to the counter with the likes of “Up In Smoke,” “The Harder They Come,” “Waking Life,” and “Baraka.” 

But the ultra-low-budget movie spread beyond the Emerald Triangle, invading video stores across the country and eventually becoming something of a stoner cult classic.

Set during the height of the federal government’s notorious Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP), the movie “captures the spirit of the back-to-the-land movement in Humboldt County — depicting how local communities peacefully resisted government efforts to eradicate their cannabis gardens, culture and way of life.”

That quote’s from the promotional blurb for a recent screening and discussion of the film as part of Cal Poly Humboldt’s Cannabis Studies Program.

You can actually watch “Ganjasaurus Rex” in its entirety on YouTube, but if you’re looking for the historical and cultural context around it, you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks. 

Produced by Jimmy Kimmel, “4X20: Quick Hits” debuts on April 20 (of course). Here are synopses of the other three segments:

• “Highly Unlikely,” directed by Brent Hodge (“I Am Chris Farley,” “Freaks and Geeks: The Documentary”) recounts how Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle ended up on the big screen. With two unknown Asian American lead actors, this unexpected stoner classic has become synonymous with weed since its release in 2004.
• “High Times,” directed by Kyle Thrash (“The Turnaround,” “The Seat”), tells the story of High Times Magazine and its founder, Tom Forcade. Motivated by the Free Press movement, Forcade smuggled cannabis to pay for a magazine that impacted Marijuana culture forever.
• “Bong Voyage,” directed by Todd Kapostasy (“Rodman: For Better or Worse,” “Meddling”) focuses on Deadhead and hand-blown glass artist Jason Harris. After building the most well-known bong company in the world, the federal government set its sights on Jason and the paraphernalia industry with Operation Pipe Dreams.

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Facebook update from the Sequoia Park Zoo:

Folks who followed Kunabulilh the black bear’s rehabilitation at Gold Country Wildlife Rescue  have been asking for updates, and we have some fun ones!

Kunabulilh (aka Nabu aka Baby Bear) experienced torpor from December through early March and was the least active of the three black bears. He only lost six pounds during torpor, which is not unusual since he is still growing up.

Like Tule, Nabu is an expert den builder, stuffing his den full of straw and other vegetation. During torpor, he even pulled straw in front of his den hole, closing himself inside.

He’s woken up from torpor completely now, and zoo keepers were met with a much more comfortable and confident bear than when he first arrived in 2025. His personality is shining through. He is very playful, especially in the evening. He spends hours playing with firehose puzzles, giant balls, branches, water tubs, and all sorts of toys. He seems to like it all! He spends a particularly long time interacting with piles of sheared wool.

He is getting so big! His coat is a very light brown color, making him stand out clearly from Tule (dark brown) and Ishŭng (black). His outer guard hairs are long, though he has scruffy areas on his back. His undercoat is still relatively thin for a black bear, which was expected after his long medical journey.

While he lounges on top of his den inside most mornings, Nabu usually chooses to spend his afternoons in part of the front yard habitat. His comfort in this space is growing. He relaxes on Ishŭng’s fidget spinner platform (which he also plays with!) and interacts with different toys and logs. Having partial access to the front yard allows keepers to train with Nabu, helping him learn important skills like quickly coming back into the night house in case of an emergency.

From the yard, he also has the opportunity to see what Tule and Ishŭng are doing. Nabu and Tule spend a lot of time together, each on one side of the temporary fence in the front yard. Tule even tries to solicit play from Nabu. Nabu watches Tule calmly but also bluff charges at him sometimes, so they’re still getting to know each other.

Once Nabu’s training progresses more, he will take turns having access to the entire front yard! We don’t expect him to share space physically with the bigger bears until he grows up a little bit more, too.

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PREVIOUSLY: NEW CRITTER ALERT! Sequoia Park Zoo Announces Impending Arrival of Baby Black Bear; Crested Screamers Hatch a Chick

Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

During the month of April, the Eureka Police Department will conduct an enforcement operation focused on drivers suspected of violating the hands-free cell phone law.

Under current law, drivers are not allowed to hold a phone or electronic communications device while operating a vehicle. This includes talking, texting, or using an app. Using a handheld cell phone while driving is punishable by a fine. Violating the hands-free law for a second time within 36 months of a prior conviction for the same offense will result in a point being added to a driver’s record.

“A driver’s focus should be on the road, not their phone,” Eureka Police Department’s Admin Patrol Sergeant Omey said. “That text, phone call, email or social media post is not worth the risk to yourself and other people on the road.”

If you have an important phone call or need to program directions, pull over to a safe parking spot. Before driving, either silence your phone or put it somewhere you can’t reach.

Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Anna Mae Logan (Lamebear) passed away on March 31,2026. Born in Heart Butte, Montana on April 22, 1948 to Thomas Lamebear and Nancy Gaurdipee.

During her time at the Manpower program, she met her husband Buck in Oakland where she worked as a secretary. She moved to Wautek in 1978. She was a summer camp counselor for NCIDC, and a cook at Jack Norton School. Her peach pies were the best. She supported her husband while he was commercial fishing. She learned basket weaving from Eleanor Logan and Ollie Foeside. One of her baskets is displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  She learned all the traditional ways of the Yurok people due to the mentoring she received over the years. 

She only fished with her husband once, and he told her, “to get out of the boat.” She responded with , “I will.” And she never got back in.

She enjoyed BBQ with family at Blue Creek and Patrick’s Point. She was a trusted mother and wife, who often took care of her family business.

She was well respected by the community that she called home. Having three sons to raise wasn’t always easy but she was a great mom.

Preceded by her loving husband Buck Logan, sisters Bernice Whitequills, Frances Trimbli, Delma Martinson, and grandson William Logan Sr. 

She is survived by brother Tom Lamebear Jr., sons Shawn Logan Sr., John Logan III, Rafey Logan, grandchildren “lil” Shawn , Chemooch, Mikayla, Finley, Sly, “lil” Buck, Fawn, Izzabella, Keet-Kay, Mavaney , Zachariah, grace; great-grandchildren John, William Jr, Wesomet, Orchid, and Oscar Jr., and numerous nieces and nephews.

Special thank you to Susan McNeal-Nix and all who were a part of her life.

Wake will be held on Monday April 6, 2026, and celebration of life will be held on Tuesday April 7, 2026, at 1 p.m. at the Johnson Indian Shaker Church with a potluck to follow.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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Thousands of immigrant California truck drivers are in legal limbo after the Trump administration ordered the state to revoke their licenses earlier this year. Many are now out of work and unable to support their families.

Multiple lawsuits seek to restore the commercial driving licenses, otherwise known as trucking licenses, but so far, none of the cases have succeeded in keeping those drivers on the road.

As many as 61,000 California truck drivers will lose their licenses in the coming years as a result of the federal actions, representing between 5% and 10% of the state’s licenseholders. Roughly 13,000 drivers have already lost their licenses, which industry experts say could raise shipping costs across the state.

Many of the affected drivers are asylum seekers or those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status. They have the legal right to live and work in the U.S. but the Trump administration has alleged, without rigorous data, that these truckers drive more dangerously than U.S. citizens or immigrants with more permanent status, such as green card holders. To justify its crackdown, the federal government cited a few fatal crashes last year involving Punjabi truck drivers, including one in Ontario in October that killed three people.

For affected immigrant drivers, the loss of their trucking licenses puts their livelihoods in jeopardy.

One, whose last name is Singh, has two kids and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. For years he was rarely home as a long-haul truck driver carrying freight across the country. CalMatters agreed not to use his first name because he fears immigration officials will target him.

Singh is legally able to live and work in the U.S. because a judge approved his asylum case. He applied for a green card three years ago, but it has yet to arrive. If it had, he would be exempt from the federal enforcement actions and policies.

As an independent contractor, Singh contracts with companies to deliver goods, making between $11,000 and $16,000 a month. But expenses are high. Four years ago, he bought his own truck for $160,000 and he has monthly $3,000 loan payments, plus $1,500 a month in insurance.

Because of the new enforcement actions, Singh lost his commercial license on March 6 and is no longer able to drive his truck. The California DMV issued him a temporary license that allows him to drive a car, but that license is inadequate as a form of ID, said Singh, since many employers don’t recognize its validity. The temporary license isn’t a hard copy and doesn’t have a photo.

Singh said his wife has started working as a nanny while Singh searches for a job.

“What kind of job is going to pay off the rent and all these payments?” he said during a phone interview with CalMatters while his kids, ages 4 and 8, yelled for him in the background.

A year-long wait for resolution

In September, the Trump administration criticized the California DMV for giving commercial licenses with expiration dates that didn’t align with the dates of drivers’ work permits. The federal government then ordered California to rescind thousands of trucking licenses for certain non-citizens and created a new policy banning such immigrant drivers from obtaining licenses in the future. Gov. Gavin Newsom said the accusations were unfair or false but the state ultimately complied.

In February, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ordered the state to give drivers such as Singh a chance to restore their licenses after a law firm and two legal advocacy groups, the Asian Law Caucus and the Sikh Coalition, sued on behalf of the truckers.

But California has yet to reissue a single one of the 13,000 licenses it rescinded.

“The court ruled that DMV must accept new applications and act on those applications within a ‘reasonable time frame,’” a DMV spokesperson, Jonathan Groveman, told CalMatters in an email. The DMV has told Singh and other affected drivers that they can reapply for their licenses and that the DMV will take up to a year to process them. Even then, the DMV told the Alameda County Superior Court judge that it may not be able to make a decision on the licenses.

The DMV is delaying because it is under pressure from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which has threatened to punish California if it issues commercial licenses to these immigrants. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy already said he will withhold roughly $160 million in federal highway funds from the state over its previous handling of the trucking licenses. He also said if the state reissues the licenses, the transportation department would consider more severe actions, including revoking the state’s ability to issue trucking licenses entirely.

The California DMV sued the transportation department in February in response to the threats. Other lawsuits, including a Washington, D.C. case, could reverse some of the policies affecting California’s immigrant drivers, but they are still pending.

In March, Singh called his bank to ask about a deferment for the loan payments on his truck while he waits for a decision about restoring his license. He said the bank was familiar with his situation because it had received a number of similar calls that week from other truck drivers. It denied his request, he said.

On April 2, the Alameda judge held another hearing, seeking an update on the DMV’s attempts to restore the licenses. The state said that it is still sorting out its feud with the Trump administration and is awaiting the status of related legal developments, which could take months. The judge agreed to discuss the matter again in October.

Trump has revived a little-utilized part of the Endangered Species Act — formally the Endangered Species Committee, but often called the “God Squad” as it can decide whether species may go extinct — in a purported effort to boost oil and gas development in the Gulf of America Mexico.

Your favorite legal minds — Scott Greacen of Friends of the Eel River, Matt Simmons of EPIC and Jen Marlow from CalPoly Humboldt — join the show to discuss the legal basis for the God Squad, its invocation by Trump, and the potential for it to be used in the Pacific Northwest.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• HUMBOLDT HISTORY: Why Some Early Settlers Wanted a Canal From the Eel River to the Bay So Badly, Why Others Were Indifferent, and Why it Never Came to Be

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That prosperous times tend to foster and beget new enterprises stands as a commonly accepted truism of economic life. The years 1853 and 1854 were such a time for Humboldt County, and especially so for the bay area.

Sawmills were being opened at an unprecedented rate along the Eureka waterfront, with nine of these in full operation by the fall of 1854. Some 200 independent loggers whose capital investment in their logging operations was valued in excess of $400,000 were supplying the mills with the required logs, among which were to be found the first redwoods for conversion into commercial lumber. The mill equipment, and especially the saws, had not been large enough to cope with the giant virgin redwood saw logs until well into 1854.

The buoyant mood of the period was effectively sized up by the following newspaper assessment of business conditions prevailing during the late fall of 1854.

There is at the present time more animation in every department of business than we have ever before witnessed on the Bay.

Until about 1854 most of the logging took place in the immediate vicinity of the bay, the loggers availing themselves of the almost ubiquitous bay sloughs as well as the several small streams running into the bay to convey the saw timber to the mills.

The Times considered these same sloughs important enough to suggest petitioning the Legislature to declare them to be navigable waters in order to prevent anyone from willfully obstructing traffic therein.

And small wonder, for the remaining transportation picture did not give cause for rejoicing. The twenty miles of railroad operating in the bay environs by early 1855 were engaged almost exclusively in bringing lumber from the mills to the loading docks, possibly also for hauling incoming shipments of supplies back to town. Although there were some roads, these deteriorated into impassable quagmires during the winter rains, and as far as a permanent wagon road between the two principal bay towns, Arcata and Eureka, was concerned, none existed until the late 1850’s. Anyone wishing to travel overland between Arcata and Eureka during the first decade of their existence had an arduous journey of some fifteen miles confronting him, whereas, via the bay, it was only half that distance with regularly scheduled boat transportation available most of the time. Thus water was the prime mover during these early years and would remain so for the immediate bay area for some time to come, especially as the logging operations receded from the shores of the bay and spread into the prime redwood stands along the foothills and rivers north and south of the bay.

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The proposal to connect the Eel and Mad with the bay via canals was shortly followed by another allusion to the excellent prospects for water transportation afforded by these streams. This time the Times writer again pointed out the fine stands of timber lining both rivers and saw no difficulty in conveying the logs to the mills for “both are excellent streams for rafting, at least so say the ‘down-easters!’”

Apparently several of these “downeasters” together with other residents of the lower reaches of the Mad River had already arrived at a similar conclusion independently. On January 10, 1854, a Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal Company was incorporated …

for the purpose of taking the Water of Mad River in a Canal in order to open a communication between Mad River and a certain Slough well known to the Subscribers & leading into Humboldt Bay for the purpose of floating timber from Mad River into Humboldt Bay & for such other purposes as the same may be deemed practicable and profitable.

By December of the same year the proposed canal was completed, and at that time it was thought that “the canal will take almost the entire stream and as there is considerable fall along the line it will become the permanent bed.”

Now that we have our first operative canal let us take a closer look at some of the enterprising individuals responsible for this ambitious project. Two of the three initial directors, Messrs. Elzy Daly and Albert G. Handy, hailed from Ohio, and we can safely assume that they were cognizant of the commercial impact of canal transportation in that part of the country. No trace remains of the third original director, Ephraim Moore. Elzy Daly was also president of the company and James W. Daly, possibly related, held the combined offices of treasurer and secretary. By late fall of 1854, when the opening of the canal was noted by the local paper, another eastern party was prominently associated with the canal: Jed C. Butler from Vermont, who gave the enterprise a more pronounced “down-eastern” character.

Messrs. Butler, E. and J.W. Daly and Handy appear to have resided in or near Union as early as 1853 and all were landowners with holdings in the proximity of the canal by 1854. Thus the principals were all residents of Union and men of property who sought to open up the timber resources of the Mad River by means of the Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal. We have no cost estimates, but the issuance of 28 shares of capital stock “not to exceed three thousand dollars” on January 10, 1854, gives us some hint as to what the anticipated outlay for the construction of the canal was.

Curiously enough, no contemporary account of the construction or description of the canal could be found, albeit with the aid of an extant map of the times, plus some later descriptions, a composite approximation is feasible. As was the case with the proposed Eel River canal, the area where the river and the bay were separated by the shortest distance was chosen for the site, the declared intent of the builders being to divert the Mad River via the canal and a “certain Slough well known to the Subscribers and leading into Humboldt.”

The slough in question was the present day Mad River Slough, the northwesternmost of the bay sloughs, which at its extremity came to within approximately one half mile of the Mad River at a location nearly one mile upstream from where it flowed into the ocean. We can find no reliable information on the dimensions of the canal, and can only speculate that given the intended purpose of floating logs and the relatively low capitalization a rather shallow (say six feet at the most) and narrow (perhaps double its depth, or twelve feet) would seem reasonable.

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Nearly four years passed before the canal was utilized in sufficient quantity for the local press to take note. A certain logger named Lakin brought a large raft of logs into the bay via the canal sometime during the spring of 1858, and the article reporting the event closed on a note of optimism and encouragement: “There is fine timber on Mad River, and this canal may yet prove to be valuable property.”

It is highly improbable that the canal was not used during the first four years of its existence, and the rather categorical “has never been used” of the above report must be taken “cum granum salis.” The mere presence of such a waterway surely would have encouraged at least a modicum of use, if for no other reason than the fact that the canal represented the only direct navigable route from the Mad River Valley to the bay. For example, during February 1858 it was reported that logs had been cut upriver on the Mad with the intention of floating them “through Daily and Butler’s canal.” Canoes and other small boats regularly plied the waters of the Mad River and these small craft must have availed themselves of the canal to gain direct access to the bay. Such commonplaces as the passage of a canoe or a few solitary logs through the canal seldom reached the printed page, for much as today, they were not newsworthy enough: they lacked quantity, substance and possibly notoriety.

As to the relatively low incidence of use of the canal there comes to mind the possibility of excessive toll fees discouraging even such incidental use alluded to above, but unfortunately we lack evidence of such a practice. What we do know for certain is that a serious slump occurred in the local lumber industry caused by overproduction. The concomitant glut of the San Francisco lumber market and a general business depression in San Francisco seriously affected the Humboldt lumber industry. The lack of demand for local lumber products was especially noticeable during early 1855, when production dropped to less than half of the 1854 output.

During the late fifties and during most of the following decade the Indian problem grew to such ominous proportions that not only did it slow the influx of new settlers to the vacant public lands, but many of the older, established pioneers had to abandon their isolated settlements for the better protected and more populous bay area communities. Of immediate interest is this passage from Owen Coy’s history of the Humboldt Bay region, 1850-1875:

Arcata felt the effect of the Indian wars more than any of the other bay towns, for the hostility of the Redwood and Mad River tribes often brought the scenes of bloodshed dangerously near, the brick store of A. Jacoby being more than once used as a place of refuge for the women and children of the place.

Thus the young canal enterprise appears to have been beset by vicissitudes almost from its beginning, what with the depression of the lumber trade directly affecting its main source of anticipated income; the volume of logs passing through it on their way from the Mad to the bay mills. Just as the lumber business began to pick up again the Indian hostilities cast their pall over the lower and middle reaches of the Mad River watershed — the area where most of the saw timber that was to float through the canal was presumably expected to come from.

Among the various other possible elements contributing to the early difficulties of the canal, the frequently irresistible attraction of the mines for the less sedentary settlers of the bay area cannot be discounted. Many potential homesteaders succumbed to the often heard cry of “gold” during the first decade of the county’s existence. Possibly, Messrs. Moore and Joseph W. Daly were among them, for no local records exist for them beyond 1854.

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Curiously enough shortly after the completion of the Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal another canal proposal was made public, the purported purpose was to provide water power for the operation of several saw and flour mills.

The Times of Jan. 6,1855, reported:

Another resource which I deem of more importance than any other, is the water power which can be made available at comparatively but little expense. It has been ascertained, by ‘actual measurement,’ that in cutting a canal from Pattewott (Mad) River to the Bay, south of the present one, in a distance of three miles, by putting in a single dam, a fall of sixty feet could be obtained, which will afford the greatest sufficiency of power for six saw and flouring mills, each with a ten foot fall. The entire cost of the canal, dam and six mills, would not exceed one hundred thousand dollars. That it would be one of the safest investments in California, no one who is acquainted with the immense timbered resources through which the canal and river pass, will for a moment question.

It seems our correspondent’s optimism was unfounded; there were no takers, and little wonder when one considers that $100,000 was a large amount of capital even for normal times. What foolhardy investor would have risked such a sum during the beginning of a serious depression? Thus this particular canal suggestion could be seen to represent the last ripple of that great wave of enterprise that had engulfed the county during 1853-1854, another paper canal to muse and speculate about and to place in the “I wonder what it would have been like” file.

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The one other canal project of this period that bears mentioning is perhaps the least ambitious of all, which probably in great measure contributed to its singular success. The farmers situated on the bottomlands east of the canal that connected the Mad River and the bay were suffering frequent inundations during the winter months, and it was thought that by straightening the river some distance to the east, where it made a “huge bend” which forced the river over its banks during high water, the flooding could be prevented or at least reduced to a relatively harmless level.

Animated with high hopes the farmers of the affected area banded together, with the aid of some Arcata merchants, and the Times of Nov. 25, 1865, reported:

… a canal was cut across the neck of this land of sufficient capacity to receive a considerable portion of the waters of the river, thus conveying them below the point through which they usually made their way to the prairies.

A freshet during the late fall of 1865 put this modest canal to its first test, and it was declared a “complete success” for the rate of flow of the river had been increased measurably by straightening its channel via the canal. Other benefits noted were an increase in depth and a widening of the riverbed from forty to sixty feet which must have benefited the loggers in their efforts to float timber downstream, in addition to achieving the primary purpose of flood prevention.

Thus we approach the end of the first quarter century of canal building on the Mad River. Perhaps the most accurate indicator of the fortunes of the major canal scheme during this period is that on May 5, 1869, J.C. Butler, one of the early participants in the Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal Company, who had since moved to Orleans and apparently had acquired half interest in the company by that date, sold his half interest to John A. Hanna for the sum of $300. When one recalls that the original capitalization of said concern was $3,000 it quickly becomes obvious that the initial 25 years of the major canal projecion on the Mad River were anything but a financial success, and whatever high hopes the original entrepreneurs entertained were not realized during this period.

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During the early 1870’s, after a period of stagnation and neglect, the ownership of the first Mad River canal passed from the hands of Arcata residents and at least one absentee owner to become an entirely Eureka-based operation. The combined factors of necessary improvements and change of ownership prompted a new incorporation of the Humboldt Bay and Mad River Canal Company on January 24, 1871.

A new spirit of enterprise emanates from the articles of incorporation of this new venture and one gains the impression that this was to be a much more ambitious project than the initial canal of 1854, especially since the stated purpose of the Eureka proprietors was to construct a canal “for the transportation of freight and passengers” between Mad River and Humboldt Bay. The enterprising and locally well-known John Vance, who was soon to build a railroad and lumber mill on the Mad River, and who owned a considerable amount of timberland in the Mad River watershed, was associated with the enterprise and served as one of the first three trustees of the company.

We can gain some idea of the improvements undertaken by the new owners from the following description of the canal which appeared in the West Coast Signal during the spring of 1873:

The canal has been enlarged sufficiently to permit the largest bay craft to pass through it into the river, three quarters of a mile from the mouth and one and a half miles up the river from tide water, affording a good outlet for produce and logs.

As was the case with the original canal, the volume of logs and other goods passing through in either direction initially did not amount to any economically significant total during the period immediately following modernization, for not until 1874 does the local press take more than cursory notice of its existence. During that year there appeared a very informative account in the Times describing the journey of some logs of sawtimber down the Mad River, through the canal and into the bay, and as the following passage therefrom clearly indicates, the cutting of logs was moving up river and the haul to the lumber mills on the bay was no longer the short trip of an earlier day.

After the logs are thrown into the river they will have to be floated about six and a half miles to the mouth of the canal which leads from the river into the bay. This canal is about a half a mile in length. The rafting ground is about a mile and a half from the canal in a slough of the bay; and the whole distance from the landing to the city of Eureka is about twenty miles.

The same correspondent relates that the party engaged in this particular logging operation put approximately a million feet of logs into the river during the previous year from a site closer to the mouth of the river than the present one. In the ongoing operation they were averaging 20,000 feet per day, with the maximum daily cut amounting to some 30,000 feet. There were already some 700,000 feet in the river — the result of 32 days of hauling — and another 800,000 feet cut and ready to be dumped into the river. Altogether this amounted to a respectable cut of timber and a sizable improvement over the previous year’s output.

As the volume of logs floated down the Mad River increased, the long-standing need for a boom strong enough to withstand the great force of logs and debris that were swept downstream during the annual winter and spring freshets became ever more apparent. For example, the author of the article just alluded to was a strong advocate of a permanent boom, and he pointed out the inadequacies of the succession of makeshift structures employed down through the early seventies.

Among the recent victims of this glaring lack of proper facilities were Messrs. Jackman and McCann, who lost some 150,000 feet of the one million feet total of logs cut and run downstream during 1873. Our correspondent concluded that

…the only seeming thing needed for successful logging on Mad River is a boom of sufficient strength to withstand the weight of the logs and the driftwood when they come down the stream in high water.

During the late fall of 1874 these same hapless loggers lost another half million feet of logs which were carried out to sea when another hastily constructed boom failed to hold. Although a substantial portion of the lost timber was beached and eventually recovered from the sands below the mouth of the Mad, the margin of profit must surely have dropped precipitously by the time this particular consignment of logs had been transported back into the river and thence floated via the canal to the several bay mills.

The above misfortunes are by no means isolated instances; they were unfortunately an all too common occurrence, and not only on the Mad River. There were occasions especially during high tides when heavy rains would send freshets down the various streams emptying into the hay that would sweep away booms intended to gather and hold logs for rafting to the mills. At times some logs could be salvaged, but again at great cost, and of course the booms had to be rebuilt.

Thus nature proved to be a fickle partner for logger and canal owner, for the winter rains were needed to raise the water level in the streams to a height adequate to permit floating of logs from the usually shallow upper reaches of the streams to deeper water, yet during years of excessive or even heavy rainfall the great rush of water hurling downstream and carrying all before it would frequently take an entire season’s cutting out to sea, with the logger incurring a total loss for those years.

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When the Mad River Boom and Land Company finally did erect a more permanent structure during the summer and early fall of 1877, time was already running out for the canal. Technological improvements in the sawing of timber at the major bay mills had increased the cutting rate to the point where the supply of logs coming to the mills via water no longer sufficed. Increasingly the mills either moved directly to the source of sawtimber, as did John Vance for example, or they became more dependent on the railroads for their regular supply of logs. By the following decade the railroads had become the single important mode of transportation for the lumber industry.

But there were other factors that contributed to the canal’s demise during the 1870s and ‘80s and we must at least touch on two of the more important of these in order to gain a better perspective from which to view the peculiar interplay of forces which finally sealed the fate of the Mad River Canal.

As the logging operations moved upstream during this period and the volume of logs cut and floated downstream increased, the force generated by high water during the winter and spring rains would cause the logs in the river to seriously erode the stream banks during their passage downstream. The resultant damage occasioned numerous complaints by farmers and ranchers with holdings along the streambed.

Another recurring objection to the canal was that much of the debris swept downstream by the logs and water made its way into the bay via the canal and was rapidly filling up the shipping channels of the north bay. As early as 1883, the Army Corps of Engineers reported considerable amounts of madrone driftwood imbedded in the clay dredged from the Arcata channel, and the point was made that frequent dredging was the only solution to keeping the channel open, especially since the water in that part of the bay tended to be heavily charged with sediment.

The above report contained some serious reservations concerning the wisdom of further improvement of the upper bay shipping channels, especially in view of the increasing use of railroads to haul manufactured lumber to the deep-water facilities of the south bay.

In sum, the report said:

The tendency of filling up the channels and growth of the flats in the bay has been observed and will increase with the denuding of the timberlands. Therefore the shipping point of all the lumber will be transferred and concentrated in the lower part of the bay along the main channel.

Arcata became especially aggravated by the threat that sedimentation posed to its already shallow shipping channel. The Arcata Union for the period 1886-1888 reflected that town’s sentiments concerning the canal most candidly, at times, in a highly effective fashion, such as in the following excerpt:

That canal is a nuisance, and has been for the past 30 years. As a commercial enterprise it has always been a failure. It has never benefitted anyone. Its intended use for logging purposes has worked a serious injury to the bed of the Mad River by floating logs down that stream. Farmers in the immediate vicinity have been ruined by it and all the channels in the bay have felt the effects of the debris dumped in them from Mad River.

Local opposition to the canal finally reached such an intensity during the late 1880’s that the Eureka Board of Harbor commissioners agreed to a permanent closing of the Mad River Canal in 1888.

With the closing of the canal some thirty-four years of fitful operation of the Mad River facility officially terminated. However, the old canal channel that once connected the river and the bay slough and was now separated from the river by a levee failed to heed the official decision and continued to haunt the farmers and ranchers of the bottomlands during periods of heavy rainfall when the force of the water would occasionally break the levee and flow into the bay as of yore.

There remained a small but staunch group of local canal enthusiasts who surfaced periodically during the ensuing decades to admonish the upper bay residents for giving the canal short shrift. Among these could be found the landowners situated below the erstwhile canal on the Mad River who claimed that the closure caused the logs and debris now flowing out to sea to damage their lands.

But perhaps the most fitting tribute to the abiding interest the notion of canal transportation held for the bay area is contained in an item appearing in 1911, where a group of lumbermen made a strong argument for a new canal by pointing out how the flow of the Mad River through the bay would scour out and deepen the northern end of the bay. Some farmers joined in by indicating that they could profit from the ensuing cheaper means of transporting their goods to Eureka and there was even talk to the effect that the oyster beds would flourish as a direct consequence of the fresh water flush.

The newly proposed canal was to be one of the lock variety to enable proper control of the flow of water during all seasons. And thereby hangs a tale, for one is naturally led to speculate how different local canal history might have been if more capital and engineering knowledge had been applied when the first canal was dug back in 1854.

Needless to say, the proposal in question remained an idle pipe dream, for the railroad thoroughly dominated the local transportation picture by this time, and with progress in road building and the development of the internal combustion engine the railroad in turn was soon to face the challenge of the truck. Thus these sentiments are mere ripples on the steadily onward flowing river of time, unable to alter its course, in this case the official closing of the Mad River Canal in 1888.

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