Welcome to this site revisited

Now that there may be some new eyes coming to this site, thanks to a North Coast Journal article, I thought I would re-state the basic idea for this blog.

I wanted to create a space on the Internet to explore what makes the North Coast the North Coast: what makes this a particular place.

My first inspiration was Wes Jackson’s book (published in 1996, the year I got here) called Becoming Native to This Place. This was a powerful idea for a newcomer. How do you come to know and be invested in a place? The idea of becoming native is to feel the same deep identification, and to have the same stake in a place as someone born here, with generations of ancestors buried in its ground. The passage of time obviously helps, but it's not enough.

The way Wes Jackson and others use the concept (like the poet Gary Snyder, it goes beyond roots in a community or an economy, but includes the particulars of the natural landscape. In their view, becoming native to a place is essential to keeping its character and its ecology alive.

That seemed especially appropriate here, not only because of the close relationship people on the North Coast have to their natural landscape, but because of the active presence of Indigenous peoples, the Natives of this place.

So on this blog and a companion one, called North Coast Texts, I started with a few themes. The first had to be the Native American presence and specifically the process of ongoing efforts of reconciliation, involving local tribes (especially the Wiyot) and the non-Native community, relations within the Native community, and how this might affect the relationship of everyone here to the place itself.

As for the place itself, I started from the ground up, by exploring aspects of local geology (here ) and also here.)

I also began describing my experiences and background as a newcomer here, and here (way down at the bottom of the month), and a little about the arts on the North Coast (mostly photos.)

There's more noodling on the basic concept, too.

I frankly had hoped to start dialogues on all these subjects, and more, through the comments. That hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it still can. I’d love to find a way in which people feel comfortable discussing their experiences as newcomers. Or exploring what they value most about living here, and how they feel they can best express it.

That, by the way, was why I created two North Coast blogs. North Coast Texts was for exposition and longer posts. This blog was supposed to be more for discussions: more “blog-like.” But whether or not that happens, the articles and interviews exist as an archive, a useful resource.

Lately this blog has become more blog-like in that my more recent posts are shorter and more personal---more about how I interact with this place, and it interacts with me. I think the idea is still an important one. It transcends our likes and dislikes about institutions, politics and economics, although all of those are relevant. Eventually though it has something to do with our feeling for the place, and maybe even the feeling of the place for us.

Welcome to This North Coast Place

Greetings from the North Coast of California.

People who live here consider it a special place. But why? Why are people committed to living on the North Coast? What actions result from that commitment? What should be preserved, and what should change? What are the opportunities, and what are the responsibilities?

In his book, Becoming Native to This Place, Wes Jackson suggests that the key to making these judgments is to feel and act as if one's commitment is that of a native, with the knowledge and roots of family and culture in a particular place going back many generations. Poet and activist Gary Snyder has been making this point for decades.

This blog is meant to be a forum to discuss this idea and these questions. Every week I will add new content for discussion. For those unfamiliar with "web logs" or "blogs," the process is pretty simple. My posts are dated, so the most recent appears at the top of the page. At the bottom of each post there is a line that says "comments" ("0 comments" or "2 comments" etc., indicating how many comments there are.) Click on this to read other people's comments, and add your own.

For more on how to use "Comments," click here.

SITE CONTENTS (click to go there)
Weather or Not

Indian Island Vigil 2005

The North Coast and More About This Site

Native Peoples of the North Coast

Earthquake Country

Incredibly Ancient but Still Changing (geology)

Mapping the Territory

For more on subjects discussed here, please go to the companion site, North Coast Texts.

For bio and links to my work, please see my home page and portal.

Coming Up

The Wiyot tribe invites members of the community to participate in the 14th annual candlelight vigil commemorating those who were killed on Indian Island. It will be held from 6 to 8p on SATURDAY FEBRUARY 26, at the west end of Woodley Island, rain or shine. "Bring a candle."

From host Vincenzo Peloso: The next Mad River Anthology will air Sunday, February 27th. at 10:05 pm on KHSU radio, 90.5 fm, Arcata. It will feature Part Three of "In a Town like This," a reading by twenty local writers reflecting on what makes life so special on the North Coast, recorded in April, 2004. Part Three includes readings by Richard Day, Jim Dodge and Freeman House .

The North Coast and more about this site

For purposes of initial identification, the California North Coast has Humboldt Bay as its more or less geographical center, with the cities of Eureka and Arcata, on opposite sides of it. Owing to a quirk of the California coastline, Eureka is the westernmost city in the continguous states.

The North Coast by some reckoning extends northward into southern Oregon, and south to at least Cape Mendecino. It extends inland, too, perhaps even into Trinity County. This is really northern California, not the mid-coast San Francisco Bay region, which is what's usually called northern CA.

Most of it is within Humboldt County CA. There are other ways of defining it, in terms of watershed, history, and polity ( there's longstanding discussion about its sometimes tenuous relationship to the rest of California, and its kinship to northwest states, for example in the once-proposed new state of Jefferson). But defining the North Coast is one of this site's explorations.


What You Can Expect on this site...

This project began with a 2004 grant from the North Coast Cultural Trust. One component of this site will be to discuss the North Coast's natural and historical legacy, and lay the basic groundwork for determining what makes the North Coast the North Coast: that is, the beginning of knowledge that a native would learn of what makes this a particular place.

To encourage dialogue, I wanted to keep the posts relatively concise, and suggest questions for discussion. But I've also created a companion site, North Coast Texts, where longer documents and more photographs appear, along with more links, related to the topics on this site.

When something is underlined on this site, it means it's a link. Just click on it and speed through cyberspace to its promised destination, assuming the stars are correctly aligned.

Through interviews, photographs, personal essays, links and comments, this site will try to accomplish several tasks:

To begin discussion on aspects of North Coast identity with basic information on the natural and cultural constituents of this place.

To explore the meaning of "place" and "becoming native" in the context of the North Coast.

To give all this personal perspectives, because we are really discussing the relationship of people-ourselves, right now---to this North Coast place.

These explorations are attempts to find the most relevant elements that shape a shared identity---that define this North Coast place. That identity can then help guide action.

One way into these subjects is through the perspectives and experience of newcomers. I consider myself a newcomer, although I've lived here since 1996. There are a couple of reasons I wanted to begin with this perspective. First, there are a lot of newcomers on the North Coast. People coming here from elsewhere seems to be the main engine of growth, and perhaps of change.

Second, newcomers have a lot of questions, and they see things here in a fresh way. They see things from the perspective of where they've come from, as well as what strikes them most forcefully when they arrive.

So those of us not born on the North Coast come here with experiences from outside that shape our perceptions of where we are now. Our "beginner's mind" prompts questions and observations that long-time residents assume, overlook or have forgotten... but often are pleased to be prompted to remember.

At the same time, the newcomer is likely to be naïve about many aspects of the place. Changes that the newcomer may believe would be of obvious benefit, may not really fit. They would change the very aspects of the place that attracted them to come here. The whole idea of becoming native to a place begins with understanding that it isn't a blank slate. It has character and characteristics that make it what it is. It is a system of systems; an ecology. So we need the knowledge that experts and long-time North Coast residents can provide.

Newcomers and long-time residents will together shape the future of the North Coast. That future may well depend on the knowledge they have of this place, the images they hold of it in common, and the commitment they make to it.

So this corner of cyberspace is dedicated to exploring this notion: becoming native to this North Coast place. I will be writing about my own experiences, which includes relevant reading, and my point of view. That's the "creative non-fiction" approach (which has been defined as "nonfiction with an unabashedly personal and subjective point of view"), but it is also intended to start a dialogue. I'm going to be honest and I hope others will, too.

It's a huge subject, way too much for one person. There is no logical, well-organized way to even enter it. So the idea here is to just get started, go in whatever directions we can, and see what happens.

I think that in addition to
*presenting as concretely and personally as possible, a point of view that might prime the pump of other peoples' observations, recollections and thoughts, and
* in addition to presenting some topic-related interviews,
* I can keep suggesting questions that define the scope of the idea: the many elements of what might go into becoming native to this place.

Anyway that's the idea. So welcome to this North Coast place.