Where On Earth?
Two of the film’s four main characters live in Southern Humboldt County and two live in Northern Mendocino County, immediately to the south. It’s a bit too complicated to explain in a simple tagline, so I stick to the name “Humboldt” because it has such world-wide “brand” recognition. Most everyone here has a story about how they were traveling in some remote part of the world and received knowing smiles and laughs when they said they were from Humboldt County. Nothing against Mendocino County, but it doesn’t quite have the same cachet.
History
It was through a combination of chance and history that Garberville and Humboldt County became synonymous with home-grown marijuana. As the energy of the ’60s counter-culture waned in the urban centers, particularly San Francisco, many young people chose to continue the Utopian experiment by moving into rural areas where they could live off-grid, closer to nature and out of the prying eyesight of authorities.
When they first arrived in this part of Northern California, these “new settlers,” rarely had much in the way of income. Welfare and food stamps were often necessary to survive as they eked out a living in the depressed rural economy. While not coming here specifically to grow pot, home vegetable gardens were the obvious place to plant some of the seeds in the bottom of the baggies of imported Mexican weed that people smoked. Once they realized that friends back in the city were willing to pay for the extra weed they grew, the Humboldt pot economy was born.
It is anyone’s guess as to whether or not the nascent cannabis culture would have exploded so successfully had the hippies settled in, say, Carlotta or Trinidad, farther north in the fog belt where marijuana is prone to mold during the flowering season. Southern Humboldt’s combination of climate, remoteness and a culture of disdain for authority going back to the moonshine days provided the perfect substrate in which the new culture’s roots could take hold and anchor tight.
While they came for the land and community, growing marijuana—or more to the point: selling marijuana—gave them a way to fund their dream. Thirty-some years later, the Garberville area is booming and has become a hub of counter-cultural values and institutions. A large community center was built—mostly with donated labor—along with alternative schools, a vibrant homesteading community, a listener-funded radio station and a robust economy based on the marijuana trade.
Politics
Until fairly recently, both counties’ economic and political structures were controlled by the larger, conservative populations to the north in Humboldt and the south in Mendocino (“Mendo”). This left Southern Humboldt (“SoHum”) and Northern Mendo politically isolated and the targets of a culture war centering around marijuana suppression that still simmers to this day.
The situation became nearly unbearable by the early ‘90s, prompting a short-lived attempt to form a new county—Sequoia County—out of these two regions. Sequoia is the Latin name for Norcal’s signature vegetation, the redwood tree, Sequoia sempervirens. In an earlier time, this community had taken on the name “Mateel,” a contraction of the names of the two major rivers that define the region’s geographical boundaries: the Mattole and the Eel. There are still a few businesses and institutions around using the Mateel moniker.
For simplicity’s sake and because it is a well-known name, I use the term “Humboldt,” for the “Sequoia County”/“Mateel” area even though this region is politically and climatically distinct from Northern Humboldt and even though some of it lies over the Mendocino County line. Most of the residents of this region use the small, unincorporated town of Garberville, in SoHum, as their main social and economic center.
Humboldt County is also part of the “Emerald Triangle”—the pot-growing region of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties. It’s not really a triangle, but it sounds better than “Emerald Tri-County Area.” It’s all about marketing these days.
(In March, 2011, the Sequoia County concept is being reimagined as “Emerald City”—though without Northern Mendo due to political limitations—and a new movement has arisen to promote the idea. It promises to be an interesting year. I could shoot a sequel and call it “One Good Town.” Nah, just doesn’t have the ring.)
