Donald Alan Nielsen, 84, the grandson of Swedish and Danish immigrants who settled on the Arcata Bottom in the early 1900s, passed away the first week of April following complications from a fall.

From an early age, Don worked on the farmers’ and ranchers’ fields on the Bottom weeding, mowing, and baling hay, and later worked as a night watchman at the Simpson Mill to support his family and to earn his college expenses.

Don attended the College Elementary School and Arcata High School, where he was active in debate, a delegate to Boys State, and graduated with honors in 1957. As a promising undergraduate at Humboldt State College, Don taught mathematics at College of the Redwoods and worked part-time as a sports writer on The Humboldt Standard newspaper in Eureka. At HSU, he was a staff writer on the Lumberjack and the Sempervirens annual. After completing his Bachelor of Science in math at HSU, he was awarded a graduate fellowship at Washington State University, Pullman.

Midway through his Fellowship, during a Christmas trip to Arcata, Don and his wife Jeanette and young son Randy were marooned in Arcata during the “thousand-year flood” of 1964. Unable to return to his teaching at WSU, Don completed his Master’s in mathematics at HSU, and also earned a lifetime teaching credential. After a year teaching math in Yreka, Don accepted a position to teach accelerated mathematics in the Northern Humboldt Unified High School District, which included 28 years at McKinleyville High School and five years at his alma mater, Arcata High School, retiring in 1999.

Don was a very private and modest man, but to the kids who knew him on the field and in the classroom he rocked. Don’s collection of yearbooks reflected tales of hard-won subject mastery, and stories about his exuberant teaching style spent in a classroom where the chalkboard was crowded with mathematical formulae. Students thanked him for his patience, kindness and good humor. In retirement, he was often stopped on the Plaza or elsewhere in the community by a former student who queried, “…Remember me, Mr. Nielsen?” followed by a snapshot of a special moment from high school days.

In addition to umpiring the Humboldt Crabs games, Don coached McKinleyville boys’ and girls’ basketball teams, and coached the 1988 Girls’ Softball Team to the North Coast and the Humboldt-Del Norte Championship. In 2008, Don was inducted into the McKinleyville Hall of Fame, and the honoree at its Homecoming festivities and parade.

From an early age, Don was an enthusiastic outdoorsman, having learned to fish and hunt from his dad, skills he passed along to young people during backpacking adventures into the Marble Mountains and Wilderness Alps. He was also a Master Gardener who shared his gardening skills with numerous HSU students, whose lives were enriched by learning how to produce their own food.

As a member of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Dunes, and the international travel organization Servas, Don lived the life of a conservationist and preservationist locally and abroad through travel and service. Though he did not see himself as an activist, he readily supported several efforts in the mid-‘80s to preserve his own and nearby agricultural properties on the Arcata Bottom from further development and exploitation. He was also an enthusiastic explorer with his wife of 35 years, Carol, in Italy, France, England, and in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest.

Predeceased by his parents Anders and Anna Carlson Nielsen, his brother Curtis, and aunt and uncle Herbert and Erminia “Snookey” Carlson, Don leaves his spouse Carol Kirkby McFarland, Arcata; son Randy (Sharmini) Nielsen, of McKinleyville; grandchildren Melynda (Joey) Blake of McKinleyville, Kyle (Lily) of Fortuna; cousins Gary (Cathy) Carlson of Simi Valley, and David (Judy Tsou) of Seattle, WA, nephew Curtis (Melissa) Nielsen of Shelton, WA; and his lifelong friend Archie (Vivian) Day. And with special thanks to the Barnwell family, whose Chalk Mountain Ranch at Bridgeville hosted years of hunting trips; and to Tim and Sherry Klassan for their Reel Steel sport fishing voyages.

Don specified no services, but thought planting a garden, a walk in the wilderness, contributing to a civic effort and supporting education were good things.