On Sunday morning, word came in from multiple sources about a big, weird airplane that had just landed at the California Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport in McKinleyville.

Then, this morning, word comes that a bunch of military personnel have been bivouacked at the Wolf Creek Education Center near Orick, which lies on Redwood National Park land. 

These two things are connected.

The plane, we are told, is a C-17 Globemaster III cargo hauler, which belongs to the U.S. Air Force. The military personnel, we have learned, are here — or were here? It’s unclear — to fix up the cabins at Wolf Creek, which are used every year by hundreds of children on class-wide nature campouts during the school year, as part of the military’s “Innovative Readiness Training” program.

Reached this morning at her home base — Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware — Veronica Aceveda, chief of public affairs for the 512th Airlift Wing told the Outpost that her people had in fact just gotten home from their two-week stay at Wolf Creek, during which around 30 Air Force and reserve personnel from Dover and Seymour Johnson AFB spent their time fixing up the cabins and generally improving the grounds.

Leonel Arguello, deputy superintendent of Redwood National and State Parks, describes — and praises! — the work of the 512th Airlift Wing getting Wolf Creek shipshape, via their Facebook page. 

Generally speaking, Aceveda said, these programs — which happen in communities all across the nation — are meant to last all summer, with different companies rotating in an out every two weeks. The 512th left yesterday, and it’s not immediately clear whether anyone has yet come in to replace them, or will be coming in to replace them. It’s an odd but true fact of life, here in Humboldt County, that it’s easier to locate and speak with a public information officer at a military base on the other side of the continent than it is to find and speak with a representative of many locally based federal or state agencies.

When he identified the aircraft for us, Ryan Cooley, Humboldt County’s director of aviation, told the Outpost that it was their understanding that would be some sort of activity associated with the project “bi-weekly, through August.” 

Though her squad’s part of the project is done, Aceveda said she would put us in touch with the people overseeing the entire Redwood National and State Parks/U.S. Military collaboration. We’ll update you when we know more.

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UPDATE: More from Redwood National and State Parks:

We were just made aware of your recent article about the Military in Orick and wanted to share a little more information. The National Park Service (NPS) at Redwood National Park is partnering with the Department of Defense (DOD), Air National Guard, Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) Program to provide infrastructure construction training opportunities to Air Force units at Redwood National and State Parks during the summer of 2025. The IRT program will provide skilled construction trade personnel, temporarily housed at NPS facilities, to assist with infrastructure improvements at the Wolf Creek Education Center, Kuchel Visitor Center and Redwoods Rising restoration areas.

Under NPS partnership with the Yurok Tribe, the Tribe will provide oversight, material, and specialized trades needed to complete these projects as a community partner for this IRT mission. Promoting the U.S. Department of the Interior mission of protecting and managing the Nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage, this partnership between the NPS, the DOD, and the Yurok Tribe, will highlight our ability to collectively train, build, and serve, with lasting benefits for our communities and increased deployment readiness of our military partners.