In the summer of 1941 our family left the hot Sacramento Valley and came to Humboldt County to make our home. On several occasions we had traveled to this part of the country, so we became familiar with it and learned to love the climate. My husband took a job at the old California Barrel Factory, which in spite of its name, was a lumber mill. His beginning wage was 50 cents an hour, which increased somewhat as he became more familiar with his job. This wage seems small to us today but things had not been near as “good” in a recent home. There he would sometimes make $1 a day, so if he should make as much as $5 a day, which he rarely did, we felt that that was very good!

In looking for a house to rent, we managed to find one on the Samoa Peninsula which asked a rent of $7 a month. It wasn’t too good a place but sufficient for our family at this time and was just two miles from the small town of Samoa.

About this time, after we had settled in our new home, school was about to begin so we enrolled the children in the only available grammar school around, which was in Arcata. This made it a long trip by bus each day for the children but there was no other way for them to attend school.

Samoa was a different environment than we had been accustomed to. It fascinated us to hear the boom of the ocean waves just over the sand hills. The waves sounded so close it was quite disturbing at first. It seemed like the noise filled the whole house! We soon learned that when this sound came from the North, it was the sign of fair weather; when we could hear it coming from the South, it was a sure sign that we were in for a storm.

We, as a family, loved to make frequent trips to the nearby beach where we spent our time wading in the cold waters of the surf. Somehow we never minded it a bit that it was so cold. We loved to look for unusual rocks and for shells left by creatures of the sea. We often tramped over the sand hills carrying the makings of a lunch that we planned to cook over a fire on the nearby beach. We cooked wieners over the fire and roasted potatoes in the hot coals. It all tasted extra delicious, much better than if it had been cooked at home.

The cool breeze was refreshing. We also relished the continual motion of the waves as they dashed wildly upon the seashore. Far away there was nothing but water and it set us to dreaming of other countries and of other places….

This place on the peninsula seemed so isolated. True, there was one small grocery store at Samoa but its stock of groceries was small and its prices were high. Our only other source was Arcata, which was a much further distance.

As a family, we soon began to attend church at Eureka. This meant a long trip by car, around the bay. Our car was an old one and was likely to break down most any time.

We had heard about another way to go to Eureka besides by car: A ferry boat called the Madaket. The boat plied the waters of the bay from the dock at Hammond’s Lumber Company in Samoa, to the foot of F Street in Eureka. If we weren’t afraid to travel by boat, this seemed like an ideal alternative to the car. At first I couldn’t help being a bit afraid for I had never in all of my life been on the water. When our friends pointed out its advantages, I decided it was probably safe after all. After that, we began to travel by water quite often and soon I began to enjoy the process. We made trips to Eureka to attend church and to shop, as well as visit our newly acquired friends.

Aboard the Madaket there were seats on the upper deck where one might ride if he or she so wished. We loved to sit out there so that we could watch the scenery. Often we would see porpoises and sea lions playing in the waters not far off. At night it was very special, as we could see the lights of the town. On a clear night, when there was no fog about, one could see the millions of stars in all their glory. Perhaps the moon would come riding across the sky. All of these things made riding on the top deck worthwhile.

There was always the hold down below and there, especially in foul weather, the passengers would congregate to await the end of our ride to the opposite side of the bay.

There were many kinds of people who made a practice of riding the ferry boat. Among them were housewives who, of course, loved to go on shopping trips and hunt for bargains in the stores of Eureka. Mill workers, who worked at the Hammond Lumber Mill, sometimes rode on the Madaket, though rarely, for there was a special boat just for their convenience. We sometimes saw an old, dirty boat drawn up to the dock at the lumber mill, unloading the workers who came from Eureka.

As we left the boat at F Street in Eureka, there was a little newsstand— the first thing that met our eyes. This stand was run by a Mrs. Green, a woman who sold newspapers, paperback books and all kinds of candy.

The next thing to come into view was Coggeshall Towing Company. It was much like a railroad waiting room, for it was here that we purchased our tickets for the return trip to Samoa and it was here that we often had to wait for the boat.

These were wonderful times and they hold a place in my memory and, I’m sure, in the memories of each of my children. I’ve often wished that those days might return but the advent of a bridge across the bay on May 22, 1971, marked the end of an era…

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The story above was originally printed in the Spring 1994 issue of The Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

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From the City of Eureka:

The City of Eureka wants your continued input about the future of Eureka’s central waterfront!

Please visit www.waterfronteureka.com to check out and comment on the Public Review Draft of the Waterfront Eureka Plan (WEP), and catch up on where the project is at in the process.

The purpose of the WEP is to guide development and redevelopment of Eureka’s central waterfront by facilitating new mixed-use developments and increasing housing stock.

The WEP will serve as a template for land use, circulation, and infrastructure to be used by City leaders, residents, businesses, and developers. The WEP outlines community-led visions for the future of the Plan Area, and contains focused policies, programs, and regulations, which will govern and shape development in the Plan Area to achieve these visions.

Questions? Contact Development Services – Planning 707-441-4160. 
Planning@eurekaca.gov.

It’s Memorial Day weekend! Kinetics weekend! All that good stuff! Catch up with the news before you cut loose for three whole days.

Plus: If you’re gonna buy your Memorial Day BBQ, where are you buying it from? Please take the poll below.

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After 75 years of business, Arcata’s oldest and only remaining shoe store, Plaza Shoe Shop, is preparing to close its doors and bid a final farewell to the town it has served for decades. 

Owner Aiyana Neely, who contacted the Outpost with the news earlier this week, said she is sad to see the shop closing, and that her family has loved serving Arcata for so many years. 

“The customers are amazing –  just the friendliest group of people,” Neely said in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. “We’ve really loved servicing the community over the years. It would be great if we could keep going.” 

Neely’s parents, Jim and Renee Guitierrez, bought the shop in 1991 from the original owner, Guido Canclini, who opened the store on Ninth Street on the Arcata Plaza in 1948. Originally, Canclini opened his storefront as a shoe repair shop, but eventually he also started carrying high-quality work boots and — an Arcata staple – Birkenstocks. Canclini’s shop was known as a friendly place, where customers could stop in for some coffee and a chat, and Neely said that her family tried to carry on that same type of atmosphere.  

“Some folks who were retired would just come in and drink their coffee and chat everyday,” Neely said. “For me those are the fondest memories, just hanging with the customers.”

From a young age Neely had an interest and involvement in the family business. By nine years old she was helping out by sweeping up the shop floors and by the time she was in high school she and her sister both had jobs managing the store. Neely’s parents both knew a lot about making and repairing shoes and passed a lot of their knowledge onto their daughter. 

In 2000 the family moved the shop from its longtime home between Everett’s and Toby and Jacks to the current location on Seventh and G Streets, and in 2017 Neely bought the store from her parents when they retired. 

Since Neely’s dad was the one who did most of the shoe repairs at the shop, business started to slow down a little after he retired. The shoe repair was a draw to get people into the store, but it was hard for Neely to keep a “niche service like that running,” she said. 

That and the fact that more people have started shopping online or at big box stores certainly had some impact on the business, Neely said. But, like with so many other local businesses, COVID is what made it really hard to keep going. Of course the shop had to close entirely during the early days of the pandemic, and losing the sales while still having to keep paying the bills hurt the business a lot, even with help from COVID business relief grants. 

Life changes also led Neely to relocate to Colorado, and she has been trying to sell the business for a while now, hoping that somebody would either want to take over Plaza Shoe Shop or open another shoe shop in its place. But with no luck selling the store, Neely finally decided it was time to close. At least for now, her parents still own the property and will likely lease it out to another business in the future.

Of course, no closing would be complete without a big blowout sale, and between now and final closing, everything in the store will be between 20 and 60 percent off. The shop’s last day of business will be Saturday, June 3. 

With her parents living in Blue Lake and her sister still living and teaching in Arcata, Neely said she will be back to visit often, adding that she loves her hometown and is thankful for all the community members who supported the business for so many years. 

“We really appreciate Arcata and people from all over Humboldt who shopped there,” Neely said. “I really just want to thank everybody, all of our customers for supporting our family over the years. We loved being a part of the community.”

Press release from the City of Arcata:

The City of Arcata Transportation Division is excited to announce that the Arcata and Mad River Transit System (A&MRTS) is offering free bus rides during the month of June.

The City encourages Arcata residents and visitors to take the bus to run errands and to explore Arcata’s neighborhoods, businesses, parks and recreational spaces. The goal of this program is to increase ridership for A&MRTS by showing how easy it is to use the transit system.

A summer month was selected for this program as historically the ridership is low in summer months because schools, including Cal Poly Humboldt, are not in session. Last year, there was an approximately 10% increase in ridership during the implementation of this program in June and July of financial year (FY) 21-22 compared to FY 20-21. The division is excited about increasing that percentage in FY 22-23. Funding to support this program comes from the Low Carbon Transit Operations Program (LCTOP).

Free bus rides in Arcata will be in effect starting Thursday, June 1 through Friday, June 30 with A&MRTS offering transit routes that run Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the summer months.

For more information regarding bus routes and schedules, visit hta.org/agencies/arcata-and-mad-river/ or call (707) 822-3775.

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If you like helping out your community, or you just really like soup (who doesn’t, right?) you might want to check out Empty Bowls, a fundraising event happening June 1 to help raise money for local nonprofits St. Vincent de Paul and the Jefferson Community Center. 

Started in 1990 by two ceramics teachers in Michigan, Empty Bowls is now a worldwide grassroots effort to use art and crafts to help raise money for food-related charities. The local event coordinator Mark Campbell, a longtime potter and St. Vincent de Paul board member, told the Outpost that SVdP held an Empty Bowls event for several years at the Arcata Endeavor, back when it was still open. But this will be the first time the event is being held locally in more than 20 years. 

The exact way the fundraiser is done varies in different places, but the idea is that people can purchase empty bowls and fill them with soup to eat, and all the money raised will go toward feeding those in need. Though in the past, Campbell said, the bowls and soup were purchased as a package deal, this year participants can purchase their ceramic bowls separately and/ or buy a dinner of unlimited soup, salad and bread. The cost for dinner is $20 for one person, $40 per couple or $45 for families, no matter the family size. The proceeds will go toward funding SVdP’s continued efforts to feed the homeless, and toward the Jefferson Community Center’s efforts to build a new kitchen and start offering community cooking classes. 

To get this year’s event going Campbell has been busy working with ceramics artists, who are donating the bowls, and local restaurants and chefs, who are donating the food. The meal will feature soups from more than 20 local restaurants, including Humboldt Bay Bistro, Brett’s Pizzeria, Bayfront Restaurant, Nou Nou’s food truck, the Curry Leaf, the Greene Lily, Vista del Mar, Restaurant 511, Mazottis, Plaza Grill , Jack’s Seafood, Blue Lake Casino, Manzanilla Kitchen, Humboldt Soup Company, Ramones, Opera Alley Bistro, the Eagle House, Big Blue Cafe, Murphys Market, and Caps Food Shack. Plus local bakeries, including Brio and the North Coast Co-op, will be contributing the bread. 

“It’s the only time I can think of where you have 20 restaurants in one building,” Campbell said. 

Bowl donated by ceramic artist George Lea

For the pottery sale, bowls (and a few other ceramics) were donated by Fire Arts, as well as  ceramics students and instructors from both Cal Poly Humboldt and College of the Redwoods. Campbell also got a few donations through his Facebook group “Clay Buddies,” which he said is the largest pottery club on Facebook (5.2K members.) Of course, being a potter himself, Campbell also made 30 bowls for the event. 

In addition to his love for pottery, Campbell also has a deep love for food and spent 28 years cooking at various restaurants throughout Humboldt. Throughout much of that time Campbell also volunteered at the SVdP free meal, helping prepare and serve food for the hungry. About seven years ago Campbell retired from the food service industry to become a full time potter, but has continued dedicating much of his free time to cooking for SVdP. Campbell said he loves doing the work and wanted to add that SVdP is nearing its 4 millionth free meal served.  

For the event, Campbell will be representing SVdP with his own mulligatawny – an Indian curry that usually features chicken, cream and apples. But Campbell said he is changing it up by subbing out the apples for mandarin oranges. “It used to be really popular in the day, when I cooked professionally,” he said. 

As far as the rest of the menu, Campbell said a few restaurants have shared what they’re making (Blue Lake Casino is doing a clam chowder and Brett’s Pizzeria is contributing a ham and navy bean soup) but mostly, it will be a surprise. Campbell does know that there will be lots of variety (both in pottery and food) and has been thrilled to have so many people want to help contribute to the event. 

“All the work these people put in – these really skilled potters and chefs putting in work for this  common cause – it’s incredible,” Campbell said. 

Empty Bowls will take place on Thursday June 1 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Jefferson Community Center – 1000 B St, Eureka. You can purchase tickets at this link.

May is Trauma Awareness Month, that time of the year when the American Trauma Society and the Society of Trauma Nurses team up to try to keep you out of the emergency room with acute injuries. This year’s theme: “Distracted to Death,” a.k.a. keep your goddamn phone in your pocket when you’re behind the wheel.

What better time for the Outpost’s John Kennedy O’Connor to check in with the people at the region’s only level-three trauma care center, which is housed within St. Joe’s? Here we meet with the center’s program manager, Brandon Klith, and improvement nurse Pam Collver to talk about their work, and to reiterate the message: Be present and aware when driving. Hopefully this is the last you’ll see of Brandon and Pam for a while. (Unless you are friends or family, of course.)

Video above, rough transcript below.

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JOHN KENNEDY O’CONNOR:

Well, welcome to another Humboldt Conversation. I’m delighted to say actually today we’re back at Providence St Joseph Hospital and we’re meeting with two people from the Trauma Center. I’m going to introduce myself, it’s Brandon and Pam. Brandon, what is your role?

BRANDON KLITH:

So my name is Brandon. I’m the trauma program manager here at St. Joseph’s. I’ve been in this role since December of last year, so not very long.

O’CONNOR:

And Pam.

PAM COLLVER:

I’m Pamela Collver and I’m the trauma performance improvement nurse and I’ve been in this role just a little over a year.

O’CONNOR:

Now, this is actually Trauma Awareness Month, and we’re here to talk about the trauma-informed care that’s being provided to people who are in a very, very difficult situation at the hospital, because we had an incident downtown in Eureka, where everybody arrived here. How do you deal with situations like that when you’re suddenly faced with these situations?

KLITH:

That’s the great thing about being a trauma center is that we’re ready for situations like that. We train for situations like that. Our staff is ready at hand to deal with situations like that. That’s the benefit of having a trauma center. So from that incident, we got a total of nine patients that were brought to our emergency room in a very short amount of time. Six of those were critical enough to meet our trauma activation criteria. So six very critical patients. And we were able to manage all those patients simultaneously at once and care for them throughout the care of their stay through the ER. So it was very great.

O’CONNOR:

And what’s very important also to really reiterate is that this is the only trauma centre for many, many miles. This is really the epicenter where people will come.

KLITH:

So this is the largest trauma center in our county. There is a level four trauma center, which is Mad River Community Hospital. And there’s a level four center in Sutter Coast, Sutter Coast Hospital. But we’re a level three trauma center, so our capabilities are a little higher. So we have 24-7 emergency room services on hand, of course, all the time. We have 24-7 trauma surgery available. We have 24-7 orthopedic surgery available. And then we have about two to three weeks out of each month, we have neurosurgery capability available, which is phenomenal. Here this summer, we’ll be bringing on another neurosurgeon so that will increase our neurosurgery coverage. But if you look at California at large, the next largest trauma center is a ways away. North is gonna be, oh, why can’t I remember the name? Medford. Medford. East is gonna be Reading, and South is gonna be Santa Rosa. So we encompass a large amount of area that we bring patients into. So us being a level three trauma center cares for a lot of patients throughout Humboldt County. of pre-emergency.

O’CONNOR:

You referenced, obviously, the recent incident that happened in Eureka but presumably also you are bringing in people from way outside the Eureka area to deal with them in traumatic situations.

COLLVER:

Yes, so I work with EMS closely and there is a algorithm they follow when to bypass to a trauma center. So we do catch people out Highway 36, really far south. And it is to come here because we have a lot of services and we are able to keep people locally more now having a level three trauma center.

O’CONNOR:

Now, just so, for my own interest, I’m kind of curious, what is the difference between a level three and a level four? What difference will people expect through that difference? Maybe nothing.

KLITH:

It’s actually quite a bit. So it’s all about capability. So like I said, we have those services, orthopedic, trauma, neurosurgery. It’s not required for a level four trauma center to have those standards. So you could go to a level four and they may not have an orthopedic surgeon on. They may not have neurosurgery on. So level four is really meant to transfer to a higher level of care. So as you grow in level of trauma center, you’re going to have a greater amount of services.

O’CONNOR:

Now, another very, may-sound-like-a-very-silly question, but I was just curious. How do you how do you work within the ER department, and what is the difference between somebody coming into ER and coming and may need the trauma center?

KLITH:

I can answer that, I guess. So we are simultaneous. So we are one department, we work very close with ER, obviously, it’s all going to be how that patient presents. So as a trauma center, we have different criteria. So it’s called a trauma activation criteria. And if those patients coming in meet that criteria, then they’re deemed as a trauma patient, and we should activate these levels of, you know, mechanism and criteria are all shown to be, you know, related to high injury mechanisms, high injury accidents. And so what our goal is, is to get to that patient as quickly as we can scan them to make sure that we’re not missing any injuries, and you know, treat any critical injuries the soonest that we can. So we’re very, very close with the ER, we’re in the same department.

COLLVER:

I’ll add to that, we do follow the American College of Surgeons, their criteria, they give us what mechanisms we should be looking at and then we have a team response. So we have a tiered system versus alert versus a trauma code and depending on what we call overhead it’s a team response that shows up and it’s dedicated to this patient until they are stable.

O’CONNOR:

And what is happening in National Trauma Awareness Month, as you say, different from your normal routine. What is the purpose and what is the goal of the awareness campaign?

KLITH:

So the awareness campaign changes every year. The Society of Trauma Nurses, or STN, puts on a trauma awareness month every month, which is May. They pick a different topic. This year’s topic is driver safety. So phone safety, not driving under the influence. They’re really hammering hard motor vehicle accidents, which last year, so 2022, we saw roughly 385 trauma patients that we activated on. About 30 to 35% of those patients were motor vehicle accidents. So it is a high incidence in our trauma center that we’re seeing motor vehicle accidents. So this campaign is meant to really make drivers aware of driver safety.

COLLVER:

Seatbelts.

O’CONNOR:

Safety. So really the point is actually to, which makes perfect sense, is to avoid people coming into your care. It’s really taking steps to protect yourself.

KLITH:

Yeah, and that’s the whole goal of really Pam’s job and well both of us really but a big part of being a trauma center is again trying to prevent traumas, right? We want a healthy community. We don’t want patients to come to see us as a trauma patient because we want a healthy community. So we really work with the community to try to have injury prevention. One thing that we’ve been doing here recently is a stop the bleed class. So it teaches the layperson how to hold pressure over a wound, how to apply a tourniquet. In gearing up for any kind of mass shooting or incident like that.

O’CONNOR:

Well, I’m sure that all of us hope that nobody is ever going to be in your care at all. I mean, that would be the ultimate goal, but of course it’s going to happen. I think people feel very reassured to know there is such a strong team here at the hospital. Unfortunately, if they are in need of help, they will get the help that they need. Thank you very much, Brandon and Pam, for joining us today for a Humboldt Conversation. It’s really interesting to learn about your work. And as I say, let’s hope that nobody is ever in need of your help.

KLITH:

Yeah, and happy Trauma Awareness Month.

O’CONNOR:

Thank you both very much. And join us again soon for another Humboldt Conversation.