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If you’ve spent any significant amount of time here on the North Coast, you’ve surely ventured out to Humboldt Bay’s jetties at least once or twice. While traversing the finger-like breakwater, you may have asked yourself, “Why are there gigantic concrete jacks scattered all over the place?”

Those 42-ton wave-dissipating structures are called “dolos” (singular) or “dolosse” (plural), and they are a feat of human engineering.

In today’s episode of Humboldt Outdoors, local documentarian Ray Olson delves into the history of the dolosse and learns how they got their unique shape. He’s joined by local historians Barry Evans and Jerry Rohde, who describe decades of failed efforts to protect the jetties from the unrelenting Pacific Ocean, and how the invention of dolosse changed the game.

Click “play” on the video up top to learn how Humboldt became the first place in the United States to deploy dolosse and how one ended up on Eureka’s waterfront.

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