OBITUARY: Nathan (Nate) Jamieson, 1974-2025

LoCO Staff / Friday, Dec. 5 @ 6:56 a.m. / Obits

Born Nathan Larry Jamieson on June 7, 1974, in the wee hours of the morning, to Diane Sargent and Philip Jamieson in Eureka. 

Nathan attended too many schools to recount as the family travelled quite a bit in his younger years. Nathan lived in Eureka, Crescent City and Angwin. When his parent split and he moved back to Eureka with his mom and sister. Later his mom remarried and they moved to San Diego. Being a military family now, they were transferred to Norfolk, Virginia. They took that chance to drive cross-country and explore the nation. They also lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia and Honolulu, Hawaii, where his mother divorced again and moved back to Humboldt, settling in Fortuna. 

In Fortuna, Nathan attended Fortuna Junior Academy and Fortuna Union High School. He also spent time living with his father in Crescent City and going to Del Norte High. 

In his adult years Nathan spent many years working at The Flying J gas station in Eureka. He never met a stranger! During this time his heart was broken and he was never quite the same. He became a little bit of a nomad afterwards, spending time in Oregon, San Diego and Florida… if not other places. He seemed to go where the wind took him, but it always brought him home to Humboldt.

Nathan dealt with many issues in his short life, from having meningitis at a very young age, to dealing with diabetes and other health issues. Ultimately, he passed away unexpectedly November 15 from complications with his diabetes. 

Nathan is preceded in death by his maternal grandparents, Mury and Betty Sargent of Carlotta and paternal grandparents Hugh Jamieson and June Corincone of the Bay Area; his maternal aunt Marsha (Marty) Cloney (Sargent) and his mother, Diane Sargent, both of Humboldt. 

Nathan is survived by his father, Phil Jamieson, and wife Karen Haban of Gasquet; his sister Heather Jamieson of Fortuna; and cousins Kerri Holt (Kathy) and Angie Holt and her son Bobby and grandsons.

Internment services by Ayers.

At this time there will be no services.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Nate Jamieson’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.


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(PHOTOS, VIDEO) Hundreds Turn Out to Old Town Eureka for Christmas Tree Lighting at Dick Taylor Craft Chocolates

Ryan Burns / Thursday, Dec. 4 @ 4:32 p.m. / Business , Community

A fully illuminated Christmas tree stands inside the Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate factory in Old Town Eureka. | Photos by Alan Workman.

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Hundreds of residents and visitors flooded down to First Street in Eureka’s Old Town last night to attend the third annual Christmas tree lighting celebration at the Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate factory.

“Yeah, it was definitely the biggest one so far,” co-owner Adam Dick said in a phone interview this afternoon. “This is the third time we’ve done it, and it’s been getting bigger year over year. But this felt like the biggest one for sure.”

The city had blocked off First Street between D and E, and crowds gathered shoulder-to-shoulder, sipping hot beverages and noshing various items from a pair of local food trucks as the Arcata Redwood Interfaith Gospel Choir performed:

Video by Ryan Burns

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Photo by Alan Workman.

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Over the past year, Dick Taylor owners Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor were able to widen the sidewalk in front of their chocolate factory, and it proved an ideal holiday gathering spot. Inside the factory, the pair addressed the crowd (or as many who could fit inside, anyway) ahead of a group countdown to the tree lighting.

Taylor remarked on his fond memories of attending the annual Christmas tree lighting that used to take place at the Eureka Inn, and he said that when he and Dick purchased this waterfront warehouse with such high ceilings, they realized the could revive the tradition.

Here’s the big countdown:

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Last we checked in with Dick Taylor, tariffs on imported cocoa were wreaking havoc on the industry. But speaking to us from inside the factory this afternoon, Dick said 2025 has been a strong year for the business. 

“We’re navigating most of these price hikes fairly well,” he said. “Some tariffs have been eased on Central American countries, but cocoa from Africa doesn’t fall under that. Maybe, in time, all cocoa will be exempt from tariffs.”

Dick said the holiday season is prime chocolate-selling time. 

“There’s something that must be in our mammalian brains,” he remarked. “When it’s really warm, people really don’t eat as much. But at soon as November rolls around, people just seem to start craving chocolate.”

Out on the street, tiny cups with free samples of drinking chocolate were being snatched up as fast as employees could set them on trays. Dick said the business’s workforce has allowed him and Taylor to enjoy some of the fruits of their labor.

“[Last night] was a blast for us, too,” he said. “We have such a good crew here now, a really good staff. They’re so capable. In the early days it was Dustin and I doing all the stuff. Now, with this good crew, we can socialize and talk to some of the people who’ve been buying our stuff for years.”

As he prepared another batch of chocolate for the masses, Dick said he’s happy with how the tree-lighting ceremony went down.

“It felt like a good, positive community event, which is all we could hope for.”

More photos by Alan Workman.





The CBS TV Show ‘Sheriff Country’ Features Some Fleeting Yet Beautiful Shots of Ferndale

Ryan Burns / Thursday, Dec. 4 @ 12:31 p.m. / :) , Hardly News

Promo image for the CBS show Sheriff Country.

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Welcome to Edgewater County, a rural community in picturesque Northern California — a place where outlaws cultivate marijuana in the forested hills, Cal Fire firefighters fight forest fires and justice goes by the name of Sheriff Mickey Fox.

This, as some of our TV-watching readers have no doubt discovered, is the fictional setting of the new CBS police procedural drama Sheriff Country. It’s a spinoff of the popular series Fire Country, which debuted three years ago and also takes place in Edgewater County. As we noted at the time, the trailer for Fire Country featured a brief but unmistakable helicopter/drone shot of Rio Dell. Fun!

Alas, like the late-2000s sci-fi series Eureka and the Netflix soap Virgin River, these fictional versions of our region were filmed almost entirely in Canada. Nonetheless! When it comes to scene-setting, sometimes you need the real deal. Your cinematographer can maybe settle for, say, Milton, Ontario, or Langley, British Columbia, for your building exteriors, but when it comes to majestic aerial views, there’s no substitute for the Eel River Valley.

The trailer for Sheriff Country includes a brief, bird’s eye shot of Rio Dell and Scotia. And some eagle-eyed Ferndale residents recently spotted sky-high footage of their Victorian Village in the show’s fifth and sixth episodes. The images below are all from those two episodes. Blink and you’ll miss ‘em, so we’ve preserved them here for your leisurely enjoyment.

The sun sets over Ferndale.

Americana to the max.

Main Street, The Old Steeple and environs.

Lookin’ good, Cream City!



Want to Help Shape New Development in Eureka? If So, Don’t Miss Next Week’s Community Town Hall!

Isabella Vanderheiden / Thursday, Dec. 4 @ 7:30 a.m. / Housing , Infrastructure , Local Government

Attention, Eurekans! Would you like to have a meaningful impact on new developments in our fair city? Now is your chance. 

Next week, the City of Eureka will host a community town hall — Designing Density with Neighborhoods in Mind — to gauge public opinion on proposed design standards for infill housing and new developments. The city is seeking public input to ensure that the new design standards protect and maintain what we love about our neighborhoods while also supporting a wider range of new housing options. 

Staff with Eureka’s Planning and Building Department have been hard at work developing both subjective and objective design standards for infill development. The proposed regulations are still in the works, but Eureka City Councilmember Kati Moulton thought it’d be a good time to get the public involved in the process. 

“We spent all of last year talking about larger developments on public land,” Moulton said, referring to the long-blighted Jacobs Campus that was at the heart of a convoluted land swap between the Eureka City Schools District and a mysterious private developer. Long story short, the deal went up in flames, and the school district opted to sell the property to the California Highway Patrol. “Now it’s time to talk about the other side of the picture, which is smaller [developments] that are going into our neighborhoods and what folks want to see there.”

In this context, “design standards” refers to a checklist of sorts that developers and architects can refer to when drawing up plans for a new build. 

“You know, what should a building look like from the road? How far should the top story be set back so there’s as much lighting on the building around them as possible?” Moulton said. “Giving developers a checklist [explaining] this thing has to be this many inches wide, and you have to have this many textures or this number of windows per square feet of wall. That kind of stuff.”

The town hall will take place on Monday, Dec. 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at Eureka City Hall – 531 K Street. Want to attend remotely? Sign up here

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Eureka City Council Decides to Add Anti-War Resolution to Future Agenda, Also Sends 2017 Resolution to State Representatives

Dezmond Remington / Wednesday, Dec. 3 @ 4:14 p.m. / Activism

Mayor Kim Bergel at last night’s meeting. Screenshot.


PREVIOUSLY:

A well-backed effort by about a dozen public commenters at last night’s Eureka City Council meeting resulted in a resolution calling for an end to military bombings on Venezuelan boats being added to the next city council meeting’s agenda on Dec. 16. 

The council also unanimously decided to send a 2017 resolution affirming its dedication to human rights to California’s elected representatives in Washington, with a letter added for context.

“All this divisiveness and hate is really boring and it’s painful and it’s hurtful and we really it doesn’t help any of us,” Mayor Kim Bergel said, a tad effusive. “It really doesn’t help any of us.”

The new resolution, written by the Humboldt Anti-War Committee, claims that Eureka has a responsibility to hold the government accountable for violating international laws, and should also support the exit of troops and arms from the Caribbean and an end to sanctions on Venezuela. A call asking for advocates to show up to the city council meeting brought in plenty of activists, many of whom said that they had a moral obligation to do anything they could to stop the extralegal killings of Venezuelan civilians. 

“Kids are struggling, classrooms are understaffed, teachers and aides are not paid nearly enough,” said one public commenter. “And our money’s going to bombs being dropped on boats in Venezuela, probably on the mainland soon. I think this is our opportunity to shovel it back in any way we can…It’s a no-brainer. I think it would mean a lot.”

Bergel said she had remembered the 2017 resolution while listening to the commenters, and thought it relevant enough to be worth sending again. She read through the whole resolution aloud. 

“In light of the current climate in our country and the negativity and hate that is being fostered,” the resolution reads. “…We will never back down on human rights, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or any other area threatened by others who treat people as objects to be demeaned or objects to be assaulted.”

Eureka’s city clerk said she wasn’t sure which government officials the resolution was being sent to. 

Besides Bergel’s comments, there was little discussion on the topic from the other councilmembers.



Caltrans Says Highway 36 Repairs Have Been Delayed Because People Keep Vandalizing Equipment and Stealing Stuff From Their Job Site

LoCO Staff / Wednesday, Dec. 3 @ 2:42 p.m. / Traffic

Photo: Caltrans District 1.

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Caltrans District One just posted the following to its Facebook page:

THEFT IMPACTING SLIDE RESPONSE ALONG ROUTE 36: Caltrans and our contractor have been dealing with recent theft while responding to the slide along Route 36 near Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County.

Thieves have targeted an excavator, a skip loader, and changeable message signs, stealing fuel and batteries worth thousands of dollars. When crews arrive at disabled equipment, it slows our efforts to keep the highway open and drives up project costs.

We’ve also seen other vandalism in this corridor, including equipment at postmile 25 that was broken into with ignition systems destroyed, and a changeable message sign on another Route 36 project that was shot with a shotgun last year.

If you see suspicious activity around construction equipment or message signs in this area, please call 911 to report it.

Also,Photo: Caltrans District 1Photo: Caltrans District 1 a reminder that a full closure of Route 36 at this location is scheduled for this weekend, December 6 and 7, to support slide-response work. The roadway is expected to close at 8 a.m. on Saturday, December 6, and reopen at 6 p.m. on Sunday, December 7. During this time, crews are planning helicopter operations to remove hazards from the slide area, which are weather- and fog-dependent. The long detour uses Routes 299 and 3. Emergency vehicles will be accommodated through the closure if necessary.

Outside of the planned closure, one-way traffic control will continue with delays of up to 15 minutes. Please travel cautiously through the construction zone.



Sheriff’s Office Seeks Public’s Help In Locating Runaway Hoopa High Kid Who Went Missing Earlier This Year

LoCO Staff / Wednesday, Dec. 3 @ 9:52 a.m. / Emergencies

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s help to locate a runaway juvenile, Shayde Evan Kelley, 16-years-old, of Salyer.  Kelley was reported missing on Sept.15, 2025 after he failed to return home from Hoopa High School.

Kelley is described as a Native American male, brown hair, brown eyes, approximately 5-foot-11 inches tall and weighing approximately 165 pounds.

Anyone who has seen or knows the whereabouts of Shayde Kelley is asked to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at 707-445-7251 and refer to case number 202504160.