Tag Archives: History

Steelhead Fishing, Santa Ynez River (1948)

A tributary of the Santa Ynez River which once was the spawning grounds of thirty-inch steelhead. Seventy years ago the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara County was known in California as “the most productive of all the little steelhead … Continue reading

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Fossil Falls, A Glacial Relic of the Pleistocene

David Stillman scrambling up familiar territory, through the gullet of Fossil Falls and over the slick, water polished basalt. Standing in the arid Owens Valley of California, beside an ancient dry riverbed that can barely be discerned amid cragged lava … Continue reading

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Swordfish Cave, Earliest Chumash Rock Art On California’s Central Coast

“The people venerated the swordfish because they sometimes chased whales ashore and thus the people had a lot of meat.” —Luisa Ygnacio (c. 1835-1922) “All, whatever there is in the ocean is just like everything that is here on this … Continue reading

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Point Conception, the Cape Horn of the Pacific

A mural of Point Conception lighthouse painted on the exterior of a building in Lompoc, California, Santa Barbara County. An accompanying reader board describes the surrounding coastline as “the mariner’s stretch of nightmare coast known as ‘the graveyard of ships.’” … Continue reading

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Salmon Choking the Santa Ynez (1896)

Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) (c) Timothy Knepp – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The following newspaper brief was published in the San Francisco Call on March 11, 1896 and testifies to the way things once were not all that long ago … Continue reading

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