Blue Lake Fire release:

At 1712 hrs on Saturday July 22, 2023, Blue Lake Fire responded with one Engine and one Chief to the report of a residence on fire with an explosion. While responding to the initial call, it was reported that there was a powerline down in front of the residence. The dispatch included an all call for Arcata Fire, Fieldbrook Fire, Humboldt Bay Fire, and Westhaven fire. PG&E was also in route. The Blue Lake Chief arrived on scene and found heavy fire and smoke coming from the residence, all occupants were outside upon arrival.

The first Engine on scene established a water supply from the hydrant at the end of Buckley Road. Arcata’s Assistant Chief and One Arcata Fire engine arrived on scene and assisted the Blue Lake engine with fire attack. Humboldt Bay Fire arrived with one engine and one Battalion. Fieldbrook Chief, and one Westhaven Engine also arrived on scene. Fire attack established a defensive attack, and had the fire knocked down shortly after. After fire was knocked down, a transitional attack began. PG&E arrived on scene and secured the downed powerline.

After the fire was knocked down and overhaul operations began, all mutual aid resources started to be released at approximately 1800. Blue Lake remained on scene for an additional hour and a half to complete overhaul and investigate the cause of the fire.

There were no civilian or Firefighter injuries and the fire controlled within 30 minutes of the arrival of the first Engine. Damage is estimated at $430,000 and following a fire investigation the cause of the fire was determined to be accidental in nature.

Blue Lake Fire District would like to thank our allied partners for their assistance during this incident, Arcata Fire Department, Fieldbrook Fire, Westhaven Fire, and Humboldt Bay Fire. We would also like to thank PG&E.

Among the most difficult addictions to witness at San Francisco general hospital’s drug clinic is methamphetamine, which leaves users tearing at their skin and unable to eat, sleep or sign up for help.

The worst part: The clinic workers largely are powerless because unlike with opioid addiction, for which doctors prescribe medications such as methadone, there is no medicine for stimulant use disorder.

“We live day in and day out watching people suffer in a way that’s hard to imagine,” said Dr. Brad Shapiro, medical director of the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “They’re just dying in front of us.”

Faced with that immense suffering, California will try a new approach to stimulant addiction: Paying people with gift cards to reward them for staying sober.

This model, known as “contingency management,” rewards people with financial incentives each time their drug tests are negative for stimulants. It’s been shown to have success in clinical trials — and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been using it for more than a decade — but it hasn’t taken off in California. Medicaid previously wouldn’t cover it, so there was no funding to expand its use.

To Shapiro, that’s inexcusable.

“It’s actually, in my opinion, really quite criminal that we’ve gone decades knowing this is an effective treatment and the powers that be have failed to make a pathway for treatment for people,” he said.

The program is expanding now, thanks to a recent waiver by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that allows the agency to cover its costs. California was the first state in the nation to win approval for a contingency management program under Medicaid. The Golden State is launching pilot programs in 24 counties, including San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Costs for what collectively is called the Recovery Incentives Program will be reimbursed by CalAIM – the state’s recent expansion of Medi-Cal services.

“All of a sudden we have money to provide this incredibly effective intervention,” said Shapiro, whose clinic is launching one of three pilot programs coming to San Francisco. “So it makes a huge difference.”

Fighting meth with gift cardsFighting meth with gift cards

Shapiro’s clinic focuses primarily on opioid addiction, but more than half of their patients also have a stimulant use disorder, he said.

While the deadly opioid fentanyl gets most of the attention in the drug epidemic in California and across the country, experts say stimulant use is a major — and growing — concern. In 2021, 65% of drug-related deaths in California involved cocaine, methamphetamine or other stimulants — up from 22% in 2011, according to the California Department of Health Care Services. Nationally, there were 15,489 overdose deaths involving stimulants other than cocaine (largely methamphetamine) in 2019, up 180% from 2015, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

And with California in the midst of a dire homelessness crisis, stimulants are wreaking havoc on the state’s unhoused community. Among unhoused residents who use drugs, amphetamines are by far the most common choice, according to a recent study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Nearly one-third of people surveyed reported using amphetamines three or more times a week, compared to just 11% who used opioids with the same frequency. Some people who live on the street reported using stimulants to stay alert at night, when they fear being attacked if they fall asleep.

To combat stimulant addiction among its patients, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital recently launched a six-month contingency management program as part of the statewide pilot. The hospital opened enrollment on July 17, and staff hope ultimately to serve about 50 people. Clinicians will test participants for stimulants once or twice a week. Each time patients test negative, they’ll get a $10 gift card to Walmart or another retailer. The amount of the gift card gradually will increase, for a maximum of $26.50 per test. If they test positive, they get nothing.

Participants can earn a maximum of $599 over the course of the program. That’s because payments of $600 or more must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on July 20, 2023. Photo by Mark Leong for CalMatters

Santa Clara County hopes to launch a similar program within the next few weeks. So far this year, 70% of the 120 drug deaths recorded in the county involved methamphetamine, according to the Office of the Medical Examiner-Coroner.

“We’re all excited to try it and see if it does help retain people in treatment for longer periods of time so they are more successful,” said Tammy Ramsey, program manager for the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System in the county’s behavioral health department.

Contingency management works

Other programs in counties throughout California — including Alameda, Fresno, Nevada, Sacramento and Los Angeles — will follow the same model.

If the trials are successful, Shapiro hopes the state will allow them to expand and serve everyone on Medi-Cal.

The model already has proven effective for the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Dominick DePhilippis, the department’s deputy national mental health director for substance use disorders. The VA started using contingency management in 2011, and as of the beginning of July, the program has treated more than 6,300 veterans. Those veterans have attended about half of their appointments and produced nearly 82,000 urine samples – of which more than 92% were negative for the targeted drug, DePhilippis said.

It’s not just the VA. Of 22 studies testing contingency management’s impact on stimulant addiction, 82% reported “significant increases” in participants’ abstinence, according to a 2021 meta-analysis published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Dr. Brad Shapiro is director of the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Photo by Mark Leong for CalMatters

Shapiro believes the model works because it replaces the reward a patient’s brain craves (the drug) with a different type of prize.

“It’s a little bit like winning something,” Shapiro said. “It triggers that reward place in the brain that otherwise they would be turning to the drug for.”

But Tom Wolf, who has battled addiction and homelessness himself and now advocates for drug policy reform, said he worries using Medi-Cal to fund contingency management will create bureaucratic hurdles to treatment as patients wait for the state to decide if they are eligible. Still, he said, the program is worth a shot.

“At this point I’m willing to try it, basically because we have such a dearth of options for people that are struggling with addictions in California,” he said.

Because of how difficult it is to treat his patients that use stimulants — many of them use methamphetamine every day — Shapiro would be happy if even a quarter of participants significantly reduced or stopped using. There is also concern, as with any type of treatment, that patients will relapse once the program is over, he said. To help prevent that, the hospital will provide six additional months of counseling after the contingency management program ends.

It’s not a perfect solution

Rewarding people for staying sober doesn’t work for everyone. Even before it was covered by Medi-Cal, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital was experimenting with the model in small programs.

One of the participants in those programs, 54-year-old J.W., ended up in the emergency room with heart failure after two decades of methamphetamine use. After his hospital stay, he enrolled in a 12-week program called Heart Plus, which caters to cardiac patients with a history of stimulant use. Every time J.W. did something positive, such as show up to an appointment, take his medication or get a negative drug test, he got to draw a Safeway gift card out of a hat. The cards’ value ranged from $5 to the “elusive” $20, and J.W. — who asked to go by his initials out of fear of being stigmatized for his drug use — estimates he earned about $180 throughout the entire program. He wasn’t working at the time, so the cards helped him get treats such as deli sandwiches and fancy bottles of kombucha.

“It was definitely something to look forward to,” he said. “And it was something fun to spend.”

But it wasn’t enough to get J.W. off drugs. Now that the program has ended, he’s still using methamphetamine — sometimes as often as three times a day — though he says he’s taking smaller doses. And he said he feels much healthier than when he showed up in the emergency room last year, out of breath after the slightest amount of exertion.

J.W. isn’t sure why he didn’t quit using during the program. But methamphetamine has become an entrenched routine in his daily life. He uses upon waking up, in a ritual he compares to having a morning cup of coffee.

“I still kick myself wondering why I didn’t quit altogether,” he said. “There’s no better opportunity.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

“I could more easily believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would fall from heaven.”

— Thomas Jefferson, 1807

###

Not known for hyperbole, the magazine Skeptical Inquirer had a headline a few years back, “Earthling Slain by Invader from Mars” which sounds more like a National Enquirer lurid page one teaser. (“GRIFTERS HARRY & MEGHAN FIRED!” we learn from a recent issue.) Skeptical Inquirer, in contrast, typically takes the wilder headlines found in other periodicals and scrutinizes them from a scientific standpoint. Thus, tales about UFOs, crop circles, alien abductions and ghosts are usually shown to have rather prosaic explanations on closer examination. (Mr. And Mrs. Spare may be beyond their purview.)

So what’s with the Martian invader headline? Turns out the Earthling was a dog and the invader was a meteorite. That’s the story, at least. First off, and despite Jefferson’s incredulity, meteorites are indeed stones that fall from the sky. And they do sometimes hit people, as Mrs. Hewlett Hodges, of Sylacauga, Alabama, can testify. She sustained hip and abdominal injuries from a meteorite that crashed through the roof of her house in 1954.

But what about the “from Mars” part of the headline? Meteorites don’t come from Mars, do they? Most don’t, true. But a strong case can be made that a few do. Of all the 75,000-odd meteorites that have been collected and analyzed, nearly 300 are quite different from the rest. They’re known as the SNC group, “snicks” to their friends, after the places where they were originally found: Shergotty in India, Nakhla in Egypt and Chassigny in France. Snicks are different from all other meteorites in that they appear to have crystallized less than a billion years ago, that is, three billion years after the asteroids had cooled. (Virtually all “regular” meteorites originate in asteroids.) Also, snicks are odd because they appear to have formed in a strong gravitational field. Where do you find such a field? Most likely, on the surface of a planet or moon. But which one?

The composition of the snicks eliminates Earth and our moon as potential sources. Venus is ruled out because its thick atmosphere precludes any credible mechanism for ejecting planetary material into orbit, leaving Mars as the prime suspect. And at least one of the known snicks has been found to contain tiny inclusions of gas similar the Martian atmosphere. Finally, they have isotope ratios consistent with rocks found on Mars by Curiosity and the other Mars rovers.

So the theory is that an ancient meteorite impact on Mars jetted surface material into space where it slowly spiraled sunward. Millions of years later, one chunk of what had been Mars fell to Earth on June 28, 1911 near Alexandria, Egypt. The oft-repeated claim is that a fragment of the “Nakhla” meteorite hit a dog, instantly vaporizing the creature. Although a farmer claimed to have seen this, there were no other witnesses and nothing remained of the dog so…Skeptical Inquirer or National Enquirer material? Your guess is as good as mine.

###

It’s been a rough month for the staff at Singing Trees Recovery Center. 

Less than a month after reopening Singing Trees, a drug detox and rehab facility located in Southern Humboldt, the new owner, Amber Rose Bedell, was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and child endangerment – her third DUI arrest since 2016 and her second for child endangerment, according to state and county records.

Although Bedell has very little to do with the day-to-day operations at the facility, staff say her “unhealthy choice” has “affected not only the facility but also residents and employees.”

“Unfortunately it has affected people calling us and coming in,” Singing Trees counselor Marilynne Walpole told this Outpost in a phone interview this afternoon. “You know, even though we’ve had this chaos, the counselors have been able to focus on the clients and give them the best possible service and they’ve all been making great progress. We’ve been trying to stay focused on them and not on the outside stuff that keeps happening.”

Walpole offered her apologies to the community and emphasized her commitment to Singing Trees’ residents.

“We want to thank the community for being understanding, for being forgiving and, you know, and recognizing that we have no control over what other people do, just how we cope with them,” she said. 

When asked whether Bedell still owns the center under her nonprofit Pure Solution Family Services, Walpole said Bedell is “technically leasing it” from the previous owners Pattie and Chuck Watson. She emphasized that Bedell has “not been involved with any part” of the programming at the center. 

“[Pure Solutions] is still technically the owner, but I think I’ve seen [Bedell] maybe four times since January,” she said. “There’s a perception that she’s guiding us but – not anything towards her – we have been the ones that have done everything there. Our Program Manager Courtney [Bell] and her family did all the renovations. I’ve done the program content and the policies and procedures. Aside from doing the lease with the [previous] owners she hasn’t been involved. She’s basically the money person.”

In addition to the recent controversy surrounding Bedell’s arrest, the center’s phone has been on the fritz due to ongoing issues with Frontier and Suddenlink. 

“We’ve had issues before but it’s never gotten to the extent that it is now where people are unable to reach us,” Walpole said. “And if people can get through, you know, sometimes I’ll be in the middle of a conversation and the call will just drop.”

They shifted their main line to US Cellular but are still working with Frontier and Suddenlink to straighten out the issues with their landlines. In the meantime, Walpole encouraged people seeking services to get in touch via email. Singing Trees’ Program Manager Courtney Bell can be reached at courtney.bell@pure-solutions.org.

###

Singing Trees released the following statement via PRWeb:

Singing Trees Recovery Center has been the center of controversy for the past few weeks as the new owner of Singing Trees made an unhealthy choice that has affected not only the facility but also residents and employees. Singing Trees Recovery Center remains open and is independently operated by a professional on-site staff team who will continue building a unique and beneficial program for all Singing Trees residents.

Singing Trees Recovery Center employees sincerely apologize for the situation and any negativity and/or distress it has caused residents, their loved ones, and the community. The employees remain steadfast and committed to all past, present, and future residents. Singing Trees aims to continue to have strong, positive communication within the team, making this a learning experience while having compassion and empathy.

“I would like to convey that the employees of Singing Trees have kept the resident’s safety first and foremost while maintaining ethical boundaries at all times,” states program manager Courtney Bell.

About Singing Trees Recovery Center:

This situation allows Singing Trees Recovery Center to display its core tools and belief systems, which include honesty, integrity, faith, empathy, and how to move forward in difficult and public controversy. Singing Trees Recovery Center is grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve the community in a much-needed capacity, while helping educate individuals so they may implement the tools they learn to have a healthy and successful recovery.

###

Previously: 

• ‘It Was the Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Had to Do’: Singing Trees Owner Closes the Beloved Recovery Center After 31 Years Of Serving the Community
• After Closing Its Doors Late Last Year, Singing Trees Recovery Center Will Reopen Next Week Under New Ownership
• New Owner of Singing Trees Recovery Center Arrested for DUI and Child Endangerment, and in Odd Interview She Denies That the State Revoked Her Therapy License. (It Did.)

Rob Arkley is back at it again! This time with a new ballot initiative that would block new affordable housing in downtown Eureka and rezone the former Jacobs Middle School site for dense housing. (To be clear: more density is great! But Eureka City Schools, which owns the site, has already turned down an offer from the city to purchase the lot and California Highway Patrol is deep in negotiations to purchase some of the land.)

Jen Kalt of Humboldt Baykeeper and Matt Simmons of EPIC join the show to discuss Arkley’s previous ballot initiatives—whatever happened to the Marina Center?—and the consequences of the ballot initiative should it pass.

California newspapers of the mid-1800s are filled with the “feuds and fussin’s” of their editors, which quite frequently led directly to a duel on the outskirts of town. And because the populace in the mining and lumbering back country was usually cut off from the mainstream of news, the editors in these smaller communities weren’t averse to making up their own. The resulting verbal broadsides and “art of repartee” were fondly appreciated by these pioneers.

One such encounter took place in Humboldt County in 1859 between the junior editor of the Northern Californian and the editor of the Weekly Humboldt Times. The Californian was published in Union (Arcata) by Colonel Stephen Whipple and came out on Wednesdays. The Times was published Saturdays in Eureka by A.J. Wiley and edited at times by J.E. Wyman, an attorney who had been a superior court judge and would, in 1864, become the owner and publisher of the Times.

The two newspapers had been exchanging verbal rhetoric over politics even before the arrival of 21-year-old F.B. Harte, a moody, restless young man who had a fervent desire to be a writer. Two of his poems were already in print, their language flowery. Through the intercession of his friend, Charles Murdoch, of Union, Harte was employed by Whipple as a printer’s devil and reporter in early 1859. He soon learned to pare down his words and developed a descriptive style that was all his own. But Harte found few friends in the community who appreciated his satiric wit.

J.E. Wyman was Harte’s exact opposite. A volatile, energetic man who was not averse to “having a drink with the boys.” he hunted down news wherever he could find it, either along Eureka’s rollicking waterfront or somewhere else in the county. His paper reflected the feeling which was prevalent throughout California on the government’s “extermination” policy — the annihilation of the California Indian population.

Near the end of 1859 Harte was put in charge of the Northern Californian several times by editor and publisher, Whipple. Harte’s writing reflected his newfound confidence, since several of his poems and writings had been published in the Golden Era, a literary publication based in San Francisco which appreciated his penchant for satire. Earlier in the year he had lampooned Whipple, who was said to be “dating” in San Francisco. Harte wrote a description of Whipple’s appearance, including mention of his large bouquet of flowers, and told about him standing in a “glassy-eyed” state before the window of a dressmaker’s shop. Wyman, in the Times, chortled, “Come home, dear Stephen.”

On November 26, Wyman printed in what he said was an answer to a subscriber’s letter, a proud report of Eureka’s thriving business concerns, listing the sawmills, saloons, hotels, leather shops, etc., adding there were also two doctors and a dentist. This was too good a chance for Harte to let pass, and he promptly wrote an account of the business in Union which, of course, lampooned Eureka:

Our neighbor at the lower “end of the bay” has written an account of Eureka. The subjoined “idea” of Union was conceived and projected some time since by a friend who expected to be written to on the subject. Owing to the mortifying circumstances of his not having received any request to that effect, he was not induced to hand us the same for publication. There seems to be a vein of levity under all his seriousness and a vein of seriousness substratifying his levity:

“Union is a country town remarkable for having been the birthplace of several of posterity. The inhabitants are intelligent and warlike. Education has revealed the necessity of ‘going in when it rains,’ for which purpose several houses have been erected, and about half that number will be built as occasion arises. The people of Union are in the habit of eating three meals a day, at which time bells are rung at the principal hotels. It may be remarked as a singular circumstance that the omission of bell ringing would not in all probability alter the regular habits of the people. Owing to the cost of living a majority of the people ‘board.’ All other kinds of lumber are profitable. There is one flour mill, one saw mill and several other mills in town. Most of the latter are used for grinding coffee. The Northern Californian originates here. Union is not the capital of the U.S., but possesses many interests of object to capital, and some capital objects of interest. The End.”

On December 3, Wyman replied in a piece entitled “Now and Then:” “Occasionally some very good things appear in the Northern California — now and then some very silly things. For instance, the ludicrous description of the business in Union…It was intended to burlesque a local item which appeared in these columns last week.” Wyman stressed that the article of the week before was really printed in a response to questions submitted by a subscriber, and he had the subscriber’s name on file should anyone want to see it.

But “we admire a joke,” continued the Times’ editor, “and fully apereciate (sic) the bountiful supply of wit, humor, classical language and poetry which flow through the columns of the Californian, but we would suggest to our neighbor the propriety of selecting subjects for the exercise of his cargo of sarcasm which are not calculated to increase local prejudices, too much of which already exists — more particularly at this time than any other should they be avoided.”

Yet not to be outdone in the rich field of sarcasm, Wyman had to add, “With all due respect for the enterprise and brilliancy of the Californian’s editor, and without the slightest reference to the poetical production on the outside of his paper this week, we would like to enquire why he omitted, along with the mills there which grind anything from flour to coffee, to mention the ‘machine which grinds out poetry’.” This referred to “Why She Didn’t Dance,” a poem that Harte wrote and printed on page one.

Why She Didn’t Dance
by Frank “Bret”

Tell me brown eyed maiden, O, gazelle eyed houri.
Draped in gorgeous raiment, circumscribed in gingham
Round thy neck a coral, and from each auricular pendulous an earring;

Sittest thou so lonely, white the dance voluptuous
Twirls its giddy circles, twines its coils fantastic.
Charming like a serpent to the gently witching, scrapings of the fiddle. 

Art thou sighing, sighing, for the “distant prairie, ” and the meek eyed heifer dormant in the meadow
Where thy fancy fondly drew the lacteal fluid from the class mammalia? “

Or hast thou a passion, called by some, erotic.
Superimposed on man, by Love’s first faint induction;
Countest thou the petals of the rosy hours
Waiting for thy ‘feller’?”

Raised her brown eyes softly, that reflective maiden.
Raised her sweeping lashes, like sable curtain.
From its crimson portals poured her honied accents
As she made me answer:

“I’ve jest sot and sot — till I’m nearly rooted,
Waitin for the fellers, dern their lazy picters.
Stranger, I’ll trot with ye, ef you’ll wait a minit.
Till I chawed my rawzum.”

Harte made sure two poems adorned page one on December 7. Then he reprinted the Times rebuttal and gleefully took it apart:

Then…and Now?

The article alluded to was simply a burlesque of a burlesque, and little befitting the Olympian majesty of such a rebuke. We give the dignified conclusion of the Times’ notice of Eureka, upon which our folly was based:

“Of the societies there are the Humboldt Library Association, one Lodge of Masons, one of Odd Fellows, and the Ancient and Honorable Order of E. Clampsis Vitiis.”

Was this a joke? If it were, the clown has no right to make a dignified personal issue with the ringmaster who cracks his whip and his joke at his fellow actor; still less has the editor of the Times any reason to use the cant of “local prejudice” as a shield in such an encounter.

We deem this explanation due to any whom we may have unwittingly offended. Our contemporary’s style we won’t criticise. We leave it to the higher law of etymology and syntax. Noah Webster might object to the exercise of any cargo, but Noah Webster, though an editor, was not a critic.

Reserving our wit for the peroration, in flattering imitation of our superiors, and in the hope of saying something that may combine “classical” learning, “humor,” “sarcasm” and “poetry,” we would remark that somebody’s article reminds us of a description of modern Pompeii —” A patched structure of mud and straw, remarkable as being erected over an ancient italic base.”

Wyman’s reply of December 10 reads: ‘ “… the apology of the Northern California of Wednesday last … is perfectly satisfactory to us — at least the part we can comprehend. We did not, however, expect to have our ‘larnin kritisized’ in ‘ettemology’ and ‘swine-tax.’ We acknowledge the superiority of our neighbors, and although we have never represented ‘Kalamity’ County in the legislature, nor written poetry for the ‘Golden Era,’ we can readily understand and fully appreciate such beautiful and purely original sentiments as: ‘I’ve jest sot and sot till I’ve nearly rooted.”

Readers could laugh at Harte’s jab at the Times editor’s writing ability and also laugh at Wyman’s parry. But to catch the impact of Wyman’s thrust regarding the phrase having “never represented Kalamith County in the legislature,” they would have had to know that Colonel Whipple (and Wyman) dabbled in politics. (Whipple was appointed colonel by the legislature during the Klamath Indian Wars of 1852; he was later appointed Indian agent for Klamath and Humboldt Counties. Klamath County, by the way, was one of California’s original counties, but because of alleged dishonesty on the part of its government its size was chipped away by the formation of other counties, such as Humboldt, and was finally dissolved in 1874.)

In the December 10 issue Wyman also pecked at the Union newspaper and its acting editor: “LARGE RADDISH. Some friend has laid a very large and peculiar shaped raddish on our table. We intend sending it to the Northern Californian as a present to the junior editor.”

Harte fielded each attack with finesse on December 14, Regarding the radish he reprinted the Times article and wrote: “If the peculiar shape of the radish be owing to its being so very badly spelt, we would remark that we have already too many specimens from that editor’s table.”

Regarding “ettemology” and “swinetax” Harte wrote this little story:

The hogs about Union have petitioned for the repeal of the ‘Hog Ordinance.’ They give as a reason that they don’t know anything about a ‘swine-tax.’ 

And regarding poetry and politics:

We were once acquainted with an individual who never published any poetry, or represented any county. His singular condition may be attributed to the fact that the publishers rejected the former and the people didn’t nominate him to the latter.

Three days later Wyman responded:

The editor of the Northern Californian once knew an ‘individual’ who didn’t represent ‘any county’ because the people didn’t nominate him. We have the pleasure of an acquaintance with an individual who didn’t represent a county after the party did nominate him.

There the matter stayed, although in January Harte printed that on New Year’s Eve, “someone who ought to know better chose this time to get drunk and create a disturbance.” There is no way to prove the gentleman in question was really Wyman; if it were, the Times preferred to remain quiet—perhaps because Wyman’s fondness for imbibing was too well known. Eureka had its own term for “having one last drink,” called “Let’s wing round the circle.” It was said to be “the favorite expression of A. J. just before he is carried to bed,” according to the Times a few years later.

Events went along quietly for the next month until February 26, 1860. Whipple was in Eureka, again on his way to San Francisco, leaving Harte in charge of the paper. At four o’clock on a Sunday morning, Wiyot Indians, asleep on what was called Günther Island, were massacred. With them were friends and relatives from the lower reaches of the Mad and Eel Rivers. Only a very few escaped the knives, axes and hatchets of the reported five or six white men. Two gunshots were fired and heard in Eureka.

A number of Union residents were awakened by the anguished cries of the Mad River Indians as they passed by on their way home. From the impression made on Harte, it seems quite likely he saw a number of the victims himself, many of them dead, dying or disfigured for life. It was said that there were about 70 Indians on the island and only a very few escaped death or wounds in the massacre.

Harte elaborated on the slaughter under a 14-point headline:

INDISCRIMINATE MASSACRE OF INDIANS WOMEN AND CHILDREN BUTCHERED

…Little children and old women were mercilessly stabbed and their skulls crushed by axes. When the bodies were landed in Union, a more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people. Old women, wrinkled and decrepit, lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbed with long grey hair. Infants, scarse a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds…

Whipple in his account forwarded from Eureka said it was a sickening and pitiful sight.

But Harte wasn’t through yet. In writing an editorial he gave the reasons leading to the massacre, but then to the indignation of the populace he more than condemned the atrocity:

The people of this county have been long suffering and patient. They have had homes plundered, property destroyed, and the lives of friends sacrificed. The protection of the Federal Force has been found inadequate…

But we can conceive of no palliation for woman and child slaughter. We can conceive of no wrong that a babe’s blood can atone for. Perhaps we do not rightly understand the doctrine of ‘extermination.’ How a human, with the faculty of memory, who could recall his mother’s grey hairs, who could remember how he had been taught to respect age and decrepitude, who had ever looked upon a helpless infant with a father’s eye could with cruel unpitying hand carry out the ‘extermination’ that his brain had conceived—who could smite the mother and child wontonly and cruelly — few men can understand. What amount of suffering it takes to make a man a babe-killer is a question for future moralists. What will justify it should be a question of present law.

Such an editorial written for a proextermination readership could only bring scorn upon Harte and the Northern Californian. The rival Times felt it had to defend the massacre:

There are men in this county, as there may be elsewhere, where the Government allows these degraded diggers to roam at large, and plunder and murder without restraint, who have become perfectly desperate, and we have here some of the fruits of that desperation. They have had friends or relatives cruelly and savagely butchered, their homes made desolate, and their hard-earned property destroyed by these sneaking, cowardly wretches; and when an attempt is made to hunt them from their hiding places in the mountains, to administer merited punishment upon them, they escape to friendly ranches on the coast for protection…

…If in defense of your property and your all, it becomes necessary to break up these hiding places of your mountain enemies, so be it; but for heavens sake, in doing this, do not forget to what race you belong.

We say this in all kindness, and sincerely hope that such an indiscriminate slaughter may never occur again in this county.

So much feeling was stirred up in the county that two months later, in April, a grand jury investigation was called. But as no one came forward to accuse the “perpetrators of this outrage,” there were no indictments.

In March of 1860 Harte was asked to leave Whipple’s employ. Major A.H. Murdock, Whipple’s partner, admitted that articles written by Harte had put Murdock in possible physical danger. Present day reports that Harte “sat at his desk with loaded revolvers” seems to be an exaggerated statement. Harte, it was said, “couldn’t hit the side of a barn,” and no one knew it better than he. Perhaps the idea was suggested from a much earlier remark Harte made in the paper with reference to a few things left with him which were waiting for Whipple’s return: “…a derringer, which won’t imitate his (Whipple’s) example and go off, a challenge, two quarrels, a letter written in an indignant female hand…”

Francis Bret Harte left the redwood country on the steamer Columbia on March 26. Whipple wrote a friendly send-off, published in the Northern California, saying he wished Mr. Harte great success and was sure his talent would be soon recognized. Editor Wyman even reprinted Whipple’s remarks. A few months later the Northern Californian merged with the Times.

Four years later, though, Wyman remarked on his erstwhile rival’s success: “Mr. F.B. Harte, formerly of this county, and a very pleasing writer, has taken charge of the Californian, a literary paper published in San Francisco.” Absence had made the heart grow fonder.

San Francisco, at this time in history, had become a mecca for aspiring writers; in fact, all facets of culture had a ready audience in the gold-plated city, already on fire with its own ambition. Harte, his style polished by his efforts on the Northern Californian, found ready employment and a measure of acceptance in the literary world that centered on Montgomery Street. With the publishing of “Luck of Roaring Camp” (1868), he was on his way to national fame.

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The author appreciates the generosity of Martha Beers Roscoe for excerpts from her copy of the Northern Californian, the cooperation received from the reference librarians at Humboldt State University and the Humboldt County Library.

Harvey Danney Harper (Dan) was born in Eureka on August 22, 1946, and passed away on July 18, 2023. He is survived by his wife and best friend of 43 years, Beverly H. Harper; son Trevor Harper and his wife Wendy of Freshwater; daughters Courtney Harper and her partner, Matt Garrett of Freshwater, and Elizabeth Henderson and her husband, Spencer of West Linn, Oregon; sister Elizabeth Anne Lawson and her daughter Starbright of Eureka; stepbrother Clarence ‘Butch’ Parton of Eureka; sister-in-law Donna Harper of Courtland, California; nephew Eric Harper and his wife Maiko, and their daughters Sophie and Lauren of Dallas, Texas. He is also survived by his grandchildren Morgan, Marshall, and Rose Marie Harper of Freshwater.

He was preceded in death by his mother, Mildred Johnson Harper; brothers Geddes E. Harper and Michael G. Harper; stepmother Elizabeth A. Harper; and father, Harvey G. Harper.

Dan grew up in Humboldt County, attending Marshall Elementary and Eureka High School. He attended Humboldt State University in Arcata. Dan left his studies at Humboldt State to pursue his dream of becoming a race car driver. He worked during the day at the family Ford Dealership in downtown Eureka and spent the evenings working on his race cars. His racing experience included the Continental Formula 5000 Series and later the Northern Auto Racing Club (NARC) Sprint Car Series. Dan raced on a shoestring budget and depended on his friends’ help, for which he is forever grateful.

After learning he was not getting particularly rich or famous racing cars, he spent more of his working career helping the family automobile business grow and moving the operation to its current location on the highway. He is a past member of the Eureka Rotary Club (1974 to 1984) and a former President of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Arcata Chamber of Commerce and the Ingomar Club.

Dan enjoyed being with his family and spending time at Hawkins Bar, Mad River, and Big Lagoon.

In Dan’s earlier years, he was an avid duck, deer, and bear hunter; however, after shooting a bear on Friday Ridge in Trinity County, a spiritual feeling came over him, and he quit hunting. He did continue to fish all over the United States, Mexico, and New Zealand. His greatest thrill in fishing was letting them go!

At Dan’s request, no services will be held. In lieu of flowers, donations, or anything else, Dan requests that you and your loved ones go out to a nice dinner and enjoy life!

Dan’s family would like to thank Hospice for their comfort and care.

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