Bob Lorentzen & Richard Nichols

The Klamath River, California’s second largest, and its abundant fisheries provide the central focus for Yurok civilization. In fact the river iS so important to the Yuroks that their language traditionally expressed directions as upstream and downstream rather than the cardinal points used by most cultures. This Was true even along the coast where settlements…

The Redwood Highway, Highway 101 north from San Francisco to the Oregon border, represented a substantial engineering achievement when it opened in 1917, negotiating the twisting, slide-prone Eel River Canyon and the steep coastal cliffs south of Crescent City. The road’s most significant accomplishment, however, was opening California’s north coast to mass tourism. Among the…

CALIFORNIA’S RUGGED 1200-MILE COASTLINE has long been renowned for the fury of its hazardous waters and the deception of its offshore reefs and rocks. Only after California entered the United States in 1850 was any effort made to provide navigational aids. In 1854 Alcatraz Island Lighthouse in San Francisco Bay became the Golden State’s first,…

Before contact with white civilization, the abundant natural resources of California supported one of the highest population densities in North America. Most estimates place the California native population around 250,000, some argue two or three times that, about 10% of the native U.S. population. Like today’s pattern, the highest concentration of people lived on or…