Issue link: http://globelitetravelmarketing.uberflip.com/i/149736
Built into the side of a coastal dune with a living roof, the new HUMBOLDT COASTAL NATURE CENTER serves as the eco-visitor center for one of the largest and most ecologically complex dune ecosystems on the Pacific Coast. It's off Highway 255 between Eureka and Arcata. friendsofthedunes.org THE CARSON MANSION in Eureka, above; the Point Arena lighthouse, opposite page, is 115 feet tall and visitors can climb to the top. For generations, the North Coast was said to be on the far side of the "redwood curtain," the psychological barrier formed by narrow, tortuous Highway 101, which was little more than a twolane conduit for heavily-laden logging trucks. But California has spent the last two decades improving the road— straightening curves, widening it in many places to four lanes—and now the road is an easy drive. City & Town Transplanted New Englanders founded the town of Mendocino on a rocky bluff above the crashing Pacific Ocean, and it still sports a whitewashed Cape Cod look. Once a mill town, it went into decay in the 1930s as the local timber trade waned but was rediscovered in the 1960s by bohemians and artists. On the shore of Humboldt Bay, Eureka, the largest town on the North Coast, has also reversed decades of decline and turned its waterfront Old Town into an inviting Victorian district of galleries, boutiques and cafés. Crescent City was virtually wiped off the map by a tsunami in 1964. Rebuilt now, it sports a smattering of hotels and motels that make it a good base for exploring nearby Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Heritage & Culture Native American tribes such as the Yurok and Hoopa lived along the North Coast for centuries before the arrival of fur trappers—both Russians working their way down from Alaska and American mountain men such as Jedediah Smith coming overland. For more than two centuries, resource extraction—primarily logging—was the region's economic engine. As dwindling forests and stricter environmental laws took their tolls starting in the 1970s, the North Coast has transitioned to tourism as its mainstay. Family Fun Young children might have trouble fully appreciating the timelessness of an ancient redwood tree, but they'll enjoy a gondola ride through the silent forest canopy and a chance to have their picture taken with four-story-high statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Look for it at Trees of Mystery, near the town of Klamath. CA 2 0 1 3 t r av e l g u i d e to c a l i fo rnia 1 4 3