UPDATE, 9:30 a.m.: Reopened, for now.

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Above: The live LoCO traffic map. If the highway is still closed at the time you’re reading this, there will be a stop sign visible on 299.

Says the CHP:

The weather is continuing to beat SR-299. CHP is closing SR-299 from the Blue Lake Scales to Mile Post Marker 33 due to snow, falling trees and power lines, and disabled vehicles. We urge the motoring public to avoid the area and we will provide updates as the situation changes. Thanks for your cooperation and assistance.

Lisa Marie Trout (née Rodriguez), 67, of Eureka, passed away unexpectedly on February 8, 2026, in Eureka.

Born on November 20, 1958, in New Orleans, Louisiana, she soon moved to Humboldt County. She grew up in Korbel and attended Blue Lake Elementary School before graduating from Arcata High School in 1976. Humboldt County was not just where she lived — it was where she built her life, raised her family and formed lifelong friendships.

Lisa found joy in life’s simple and meaningful moments. She took immense pride in her yard and garden, spending countless peaceful hours outdoors nurturing the beauty around her. She loved sewing, tackling do-it-yourself home and yard projects, and spending time at the river with family and friends. One of her greatest joys was playing cards with her beloved granddaughter, Mackenzie. These everyday moments became treasured memories for those fortunate enough to share them with her.

Throughout her life, Lisa worked for several local companies, including Northwestern Pacific Railroad, Simpson Timber Company, Green Diamond Resource Company, St. Joseph Home Health, and most recently Bettendorf Trucking. She was known for her strong work ethic, reliability and dedication.

Lisa was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 32 years, Terry Trout; her son, Tory Enrique, who passed away at a young age; her parents, Donald Rodriguez Sr. and Dorothy Rodriguez (née Johnson); and her older sister, “Aunt Loni” Leloni Songy. While her passing leaves an immeasurable void, her family finds solace in imagining her reunited with those she loved and lost before her.

She is survived by her daughter, Sara, and granddaughter, Mackenzie; her stepdaughter, Terra, and granddaughter, Summer; her brother, Donald Rodriguez Jr., and his wife, Sandy; nieces Yvonne, Rachael, Stacy, and Cara; nephew Darrel Songy; and numerous great-nieces, great-nephews, and cousins across California, Oregon, Arizona, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Lisa will be remembered for her quiet strength, her love of family, her generous heart, and the pride she took in creating a warm and welcoming home. Though she left unexpectedly, the love she gave remains with all who knew her.

George Still — “Big George” — passed away at home on December 28, 2025.

George was born on July 13, 1945 in Eureka to Clarence P. Still and Mable Holt Still. George grew up in Fields Landing and Eureka. He attended school in Eureka, graduating from Eureka High School class of 1964. The year after high school George worked for PG&E and left there for a 40-year career working as a longshoreman operating a crane loading boxcars, logs, rice, etc., into big ships. George retired in August 2006 from Westfall Stevedore Co. George was very proud to have received a plaque for 40 years of service without a loss time injury from the Pacific Maritime Association of Northern California.

A big passion of his was his boat the “T11.” Fishing and crabbing during the seasons with long-time friends Lanny Bravo (The Lucky Lady), crew of the “Virginia J”, along with Tex, Bob and Tom. George would meet with friends, along with other local fishermen, every morning for 34 years at Gill’s By the Bay for coffee up until the day he passed away. He would play cards with the retirees of the Local 14, Tim (Whale) Jacobson, Kurt Adorni and others, where many card decks were torn up in frustration.

George had participated in the men’s softball league and was a first baseman while playing. He was a fan of watching all the pro football and basketball games. He enjoyed watching women’s college softball as well as watching Little League baseball world series. Some of his favorite sports teams were Tom Brady’s New England Patriots, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Golden State Warriors.

In 2001 George met Jackie at the Eureka Elks Lodge while sitting at Friendly Corner with his three drinking buddies Frenchy, John and Gunny. George and Jackie married in 2006. Jackie’s family, son Kelly Schulz, daughter in-law LaWana Schulz, granddaughter Carson (Josh) Winans and Rachelle Aubrey, became the family he never had. They saw beyond that grumpy attitude, the generous and kind man that he really was.

George is survived by his wife of 20 years, Jackie Hurst Still and her family, his half-brother Lee Still, several nieces 16:56:21and nephews and cousins. George was preceded in death by his parents Clarence P. Still, Mable Holt Still and his sister Linda Still Koskela.

George is up there in the “Friendly Sky” toasting a beer with his buddies and giving the Angel serving them a bad time.

There will be a celebration of life Wednesday March 18th, 2026 at 1:00PM hosted at Gill’s By the Bay in King Salmon.

Cookies (George’s favorite) will be brought by Jackie’s family and Gill’s will be serving coffee. (The Restaurant will be closed for food). Please come and share your stories of “Big George” and enjoy the cookies and coffee in his honor.

Ruth Georga Taylor passed away at the age of 98 on February 3, 2026, at her home in McKinleyville.

Ruth, who went by Georga, was born on November 28, 1927, in Mankato, Minnesota. Her parents, Ralph and Ruth Bray, were performers and operated a travelling theatrical vaudeville show called the Rainbow Players throughout the western United States in the late 1920s and into the early 1940s. As young kids, Georga and her younger brother, Jerry, lived with their grandparents during the summer show season because Georga said, “we were too young to perform or be useful to the show.” However, once old enough, Georga and eventually Jerry joined the show and they spent their summers performing, hanging show fliers around whatever town they were in, selling tickets, and assisting in setting up and breaking down the stage and props.

Show business and theater interested Georga, to the point where she ventured on her own to New York City in 1947 to try and make it in theater. She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, hired an agent, worked day jobs to pay rent and living expenses, and performed in several off-Broadway productions. The day job she would tell the most stories about was being a store detective to spot shoplifters at Lord and Taylor and Macy’s in Manhattan. Eventually, she made her way back west, to Oregon, where her parents had settled down. In Eugene, she met George Frederick Taylor aka Fred, who was studying journalism at U of O, go Ducks! After graduating, Fred worked for the Oregonian as a sportswriter and also as a reporter at the Astoria Budget. The only two sports that Georga had interest in were baseball and track and field. Georga and Fred were married in Coos Bay, Oregon on October 6, 1951. Three years later they took a bus to the East Coast to travel by ocean liner to Europe for a belated, seven-month, honeymoon. On return to New York City in 1955, Fred started a new job, as a copy editor at the Wall Street Journal, the paper he would work at for the next 30 years. His promotions led to new places, including Detroit, Michigan where Georga and Fred adopted two children, Amelia and Ross. After Detroit, they lived in Washington D.C. in the mid-to-late 1960s, Belvedere, California in 1968-69, and eventually settled in Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1970 where they stayed for 16 years.

Georga was not your typical 1960s-70s housewife. In addition to those responsibilities, she stayed interested in the theater, writing and directing plays and musicals for local theater. She and Fred were both avid readers, political news junkies, and loved attending as many Broadway shows as possible while living near New York City. She loved gardening and planting flowers to specifically attract birds, which were another interest of hers. Another passion she had was designing “dream” houses on pads of graph paper.

In 1986, Fred retired and he and Georga purchased ocean-front property in Charleston, Oregon that had a dilapidated house on it. They had that house torn down and Georga got her dream house! She designed the house and worked with an architect who developed the final blueprints. Several years after moving into the main house, Georga designed a guest cottage that was built to make more room for guests and visiting family. Georga and Fred lived in Charleston for 29 years, until Fred’s passing in 2015. Georga was active in the Charleston-Coos Bay-North Bend community. She volunteered at the Coos County Historical Society and assisted at local elementary schools, mainly with reading literacy. Georga continued to garden in Charleston and enjoyed beach walks, bird watching, ocean sunsets, summer farmers’ markets, and hosting family and friends. She and Fred made annual trips to Eugene to visit journalism friends and catch a Eugene Emeralds baseball game (High-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants).

After Fred’s death, Georga moved to McKinleyville to be near her son and his family. From an ocean-front home to a double-wide mobile home at the Thunderbird Estates on Gwin Road, yet she loved the location and quickly created a new life for herself. Her daily routine was walking to Safeway for groceries, a stop at the Cask and Flask for a copy of the New York Times and then to Ramone’s to read the paper over a coffee and pastry. She walked to many places in McKinleyville and made personal connections everywhere she went, including the library, Blake’s Books, and Miller Farms to name a few. Georga’s ability to volunteer had diminished, yet she generously donated to causes she believed in, such as reading literacy in Coos County, Planned Parenthood, Food for People, Oxfam International, and American Rivers. In her move from Oregon to California, she switched her baseball allegiance from the Seattle Mariners to the San Francisco Giants and religiously watched Giants’ games.

A fall and broken hip in 2018 reduced her mobility and independence. A desire to stay in her home started a long-term relationship with a special set of caregivers, who at first assisted for part of the day, but eventually grew into 24/7 home care. For years, the best part of Georga’s day was going on a drive or, an adventure as she called it, with the day-shift caregiver. She especially loved going to Crescent City, driving along the section of old Highway 101 and the redwoods, seeing elk and ocean views, eating burgers or fish and chips from the Sea Quake Brewery, and in the winter, watching the large groups of sea lions feasting on the herring run in Crescent City harbor.

Georga is survived by her daughter, Amelia Taylor and granddaughters Caitlin and Rachael Evans of Portland, Oregon and her son, Ross Taylor, daughter-in-law, Anya Taylor, granddaughter, Elsa Taylor of McKinleyville and grandson, Zane Taylor of Arcata. Georga’s family expresses their deepest gratitude and thanks to the incredible caregivers that she had, especially to Dena, Jacquie, and Elsa. We also express our thanks to Hospice of Humboldt, especially nurses Kerry and Scotty, who helped us navigate the final stages of Georga’s long and full life. We like to believe that she held on one more day for that final visit from Kerry, to hear her say, “good morning, beautiful” one more time.

As per Georga’s wishes, her ashes will be spread in the ocean in Charleston, Oregon following a small memorial service later this year. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to one of her favorite charities.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Georga Taylor’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

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Seven years after publicly announcing plans for a huge land-based fish production facility on the Samoa Peninsula, Nordic Aquafarms quietly abandoned the project altogether. 

Last month, Nordic CEO Charles Hostlund submitted paperwork to formally dissolve the company’s California-based affiliate. The move came almost exactly a year after Nordic Aquafarms dropped plans for a similar fish factory in Belfast, Maine.

Reached via email, Humboldt Bay Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelsen confirmed that the company has bailed on Humboldt County. 

“We are aware that Nordic no longer intends to pursue a project on the Samoa Peninsula and are working with Nordic and the County for the orderly wind-down of the project,” Mikkelsen wrote in a reply email.

While the project’s collapse doesn’t come as a total surprise — we reported back in September that prospects looked dim — it nevertheless represents a major setback for local government agencies that stood to benefit from such a major economic development project. 

In 2019, Nordic signed a 30-year lease with the Harbor District, agreeing to pay the agency half a million dollars upon completion of an initial planning period, plus annual rent payments that would eventually exceed $160,000.

The factory itself was projected to cost $650 million and employ up to 150 full-time workers while producing 27,000 metric tons of Yellowtail kingfish per year — enough to supply West Coast markets from Seattle to Los Angeles and beyond.

Operations would have required more than 10 million gallons of seawater per day, plus roughly 2 million gallons per day of fresh water, which the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) had agreed to provide. That agency has been in need of an industrial-scale customer since the pulp mills shut down, given California’s “use it or lose it” system of allocating water rights. 

The fish factory, known as a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), was slated to be built on the former site of Evergreen Pulp Mil. That property, a designated brownfield, has undergone extensive EPA-funded assessment and cleanup. Construction would have required Nordic to complete a more extensive, multi-million-dollar cleanup, plus demolition of old infrastructure, including the 270-foot-tall boiler building and adjacent smokestack. 

Nordic reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars in Maine before abandoning the project under the weight of numerous legal battles. There’s no reason to think the company spent less than that here.

While not legally required to complete a full environmental impact report for the local project, Nordic bowed to public pressure and did so anyway. In 2024, the company announced that it had secured the three major coastal development permits necessary to move forward with the project. 

But last April, domestic Nordic executives acknowledged that they were seeking new investors and facing a longer, more expensive timeline amid ongoing regulatory and financial problems. 

The company made no formal announcement of its departure from Humboldt County. The Outpost requested a follow-up call with Mikkelsen, from the Harbor District, in hopes of getting more details. We hoped to ask how much money Nordic owes the agency and what the company’s departure means for its fiscal solvency and development plans. However, he has not yet replied to that request.

We’ve also reached out to the County of Humboldt. We’ll update readers when we have more information.

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CORRECTION: This post initially included a typo misstating the estimated cost of the fish factory project. It was $650 million.

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PREVIOUSLY

• Six Months Since Nordic Aquafarms’ Last Public Update, Deep Uncertainty Surrounds Peninsula Fish Factory Project
• With Its Maine Project Dead, Nordic Aquafarms is Seeking New Investors and Facing a Longer Timeline for Its Land-Based Fish Factory on the Samoa Peninsula
• Coastal Commission Approves Humboldt Bay Seawater Intake System Upgrades Needed for Nordic Aquafarms Project
• Nordic Aquafarms Celebrates Coastal Commission Denial of Five Appeals to Samoa Fish Farm
• Coastal Commission OKs Wastewater Discharge Permit for Nordic Aquafarms’ Onshore Fish Farm
• Water Quality Board Awards Wastewater Discharge Permit for Nordic Aquafarms’ Planned Peninsula Facility
• Salmon OUT, Yellowtail IN: Nordic Aquafarms Announces Species Switch-Up at its Planned Humboldt Facility

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PREVIOUSLY:

• 101 CLOSED: Broadway Street in Eureka is Closed Between 14th and Wabash Following Fatal Collision

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On February 13, 2026, at approximately 4:17 p.m., officers with the Eureka Police Department (EPD) responded to the intersection of W. Wabash Avenue and Broadway following a report of an injury traffic collision. Upon arrival, officers located the involved vehicle and a pedestrian. The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene.

As standard protocol, personnel from EPD’s Criminal Investigations Unit and Major Injury Team responded to conduct the investigation. During the investigation, several witnesses were contacted.

The following are the current facts known about the collision:

• The 83-year-old, male pedestrian was crossing westbound across Broadway within the marked pedestrian crosswalk.
• The RV was turning northbound onto Broadway from W. Wabash Avenue.
• The RV collided with the pedestrian prior to the pedestrian reaching the double yellow line designating the turn lane for Broadway.
• Preliminary investigation indicates the collision was caused by the driver of the RV failing to yield to the pedestrian in the crosswalk while turning.
• Alcohol or impairment do not appear to be factors in the collision.
• The victim had a dog with him at the time of the collision. Animal Control has confirmed the dog is alive and is with associates of the decedent.

This incident remains under active investigation. Anyone who witnessed the collision or has information that may assist investigators is urged to contact EPDs Criminal Investigations Unit at (707) 441-4300.

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PREVIOUSLY (2021):

• New Owners of Scotia Inn Outline Long-Term Plans, Including Heated Pools, Hot Tubs, Food, Drink and More

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Press release:

Scotia Lodge has changed ownership. Bloxx Capital, a hospitality investment and operating company focused on unique boutique properties, acquired the historic property as of January 29, 2026. 

Formerly known as the Scotia Inn, the 100-year-old-hotel is an ideal property for the company, whose vision is to “build a curated portfolio of boutique hotels with fewer than 150 rooms, each located in culturally vibrant, historically significant, or naturally stunning destinations.” Which currently includes El Noa Noa in Palm Springs - an iconic romantic escape once home to Mexican singer and songwriter, Juan Gabriel. 

Scotia Lodge will continue operating under its current team while new owners, led by Sony Sunny and his wife Unni Sony, plan upgrades and expanded guest services.

“When we first purchased the Scotia Inn, our vision was to restore the hotel in a way that honored its history and celebrated the Humboldt community. Over the past five years, we’ve been privileged to welcome both visitors and locals to the Lodge, and we’re excited to see what its next chapter holds. - Jon O’Connor, co-founder Scotia Lodge

Sunny shared plans to elevate the guest experience by developing a concierge service as well as by making improvements to the property. 

The concierge service is designed to connect out-of-town guests with authentic local experiences. The team envisions curating everything from group outdoor adventures like rafting and hiking to more personalized services, like creating custom keepsakes for visitors to treasure their visit to the Redwoods.

Looking ahead, in the next two to three years, the third floor will be upgraded into more luxury-style suites, while the second floor will retain its cozy cabin-inspired feel. In the near term, the team is working toward adding a combination of private indoor and outdoor hot tubs and saunas within the next six months. They plan to make these open to the public via a Day Pass for locals.

All of the current employees and management have been retained. The hotel will remain under the leadership of manager Kristen Fine, who is eager to renew the vision of Scotia Lodge as a community hub, “Sony truly understands that the only way for the hotel to thrive is with the support of our locals. I’m excited to reconnect with our local businesses and further establish the Lodge as a gathering space for residents and visitors alike.”

The new ownership team is committed to serving the local community and plans to offer discounted rates to locals for events. Community members are encouraged to reach out to inquire about special pricing for events such as weddings, reunions, proms, business meetings and more. 

A soft launch of both Main + Mill Kitchen and Wonder Bar is scheduled for Saturday, February 21.

Main + Mill Kitchen will resume breakfast service from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., featuring waffle sandwiches made by Thomas Brennan, as well as coffee from Humboldt Bay Coffee Company, and ice cream from Jersey Scoop. The restaurant will be open Thursday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Wonder Bar will also reopen on Saturday, February 21 with light appetizers and happy hour drink specials from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. On opening weekend, the first 50 guests at the bar on Saturday and Sunday will receive a free gift. Guests are encouraged to check with the bar for details. Planned hours for the bar going forward are Thursday through Sunday from 5 to 10 p.m. with weekly Karaoke nights in the works.

Scotia Lodge invites local business owners and service providers to partner in building out the concierge program. The team is particularly interested in connecting with outdoor guides and other experience-based businesses that enhance the region’s appeal to both visitors and residents. For more information, contact Kristen Fine, Scotia Lodge Manager, at manager@scotia-lodge.com or 707-601-5640.

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