Humboldt Bay (Wiyot language: Wigi) Friends of the Dunes – Cultural History. is a natural bay and a multi-basin, bar-built coastal lagoon located on the rugged North Coast of California, entirely within Humboldt County, United States. It is the largest protected body of water on the West Coast between San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound, the second-largest enclosed bay in California, and the largest port between San Francisco and Coos Bay, Oregon. The largest city adjoining the bay is Eureka, the regional center and county seat of Humboldt County, followed by the city of Arcata. These primary cities, together with adjoining unincorporated communities and several small towns, make up the Humboldt Bay area with a total population of nearly 80,000 people. This comprises nearly 60% of the population of Humboldt County. The bay is home to more than 100 plant species, 300 invertebrate species, 100 fish species, and 200 bird species. In addition, the bay and its complex system of marshes and grasses support hundreds of thousands of migrating and local shore birds. Commercially, this second-largest estuary in California is the site of the largest Oyster farming operations on the West Coast, producing more than half of all farmed in California.
The Port of Humboldt Bay (also referred to as the Port of Eureka) is a deep water port with harbor facilities, including large industrial docks at Fairhaven, Samoa, and Fields Landing designed to serve cargo and other vessels. Several marinas also located in Greater Eureka have the capacity to serve hundreds of small to mid-size boats and pleasure craft. Beginning in the 1850s, the bay was used extensively to export Logging and forest products as part of the historic West coast lumber trade, but with the decline of the industry lumber now is only infrequently shipped from the port.
The bay is approximately long but can be from wide at the entrance to the widest point at in the North Bay. The surface area of Humboldt Bay is of which are intertidal mudflats. More than are primarily eelgrass habitat, which has been relatively constant since 1871, although more than 80% of the bay's coastal marsh habitats have been lost or fragmented by levee, Rail transport and highway construction. At high tide the surface area is approximately , but it is at low tide. Each tidal cycle replaces 41% of the water in Humboldt Bay, although exchange in small channels and sloughs of the bay can take up to three weeks.
Three rivers, the Mad, Elk, and Eel, drained into Humboldt Bay during the mid-Pleistocene. Subsequently, the Mad River cut a new outlet to the sea, and the flow of the Eel was diverted by tectonic uplift of Table Bluff at the southern end of the bay, but Elk River continues to drain into Humboldt Bay.
In the 21st century, the bay is considered to have three regions:
Daby, Woodley, and Tuluwat (formerly Indian) islands are in the North Bay, and all three are within the City of Eureka. Low tides reveal two more islands: Sand Island, which was formed from Dredging spoils left in the early 20th century, and Bird Island. A large Zostera bed in the South Bay, which may be exposed at low tides, is locally known as Clam Island.
The Wiyot language is related to the Algonquian language of the Great Plains. The Wiyot Tribe is located in Loleta, California. Tribal members reside on two different reservations, the Table Bluff reservation and the old Table Bluff reservation, sometimes referred to as Indianola. The old reservation, roughly 20 acres, was originally purchased by a local church group to relocate homeless Wiyot in the early 1900s. While the old reservation is still in use, the tribe moved to the new Table Bluff reservation. The new reservation is roughly 88 acres.
Wiyot territory is divided into three different regions: lower Mad River, Humboldt Bay, and lower Eel River. Their entire territory was only around 36 miles long and roughly 15 miles wide. Although relatively small, Wiyot territory encompassed miles of old growth redwood forests, sandy dunes, wetlands and open prairies. Due to its abundance, Cupressaceae were often used by the Wiyot. Most notably, they made canoes and small houses out of the durable redwood. The average redwood canoe would measure a minimum of 18 feet long and 4 feet wide. To make the canoes, the Wiyot would fell a tree and hollow out the log with fire. Their houses would be made out of redwood planks, forming a rectangular shape. A pitched roof would be built on top. It is estimated that there were around 98 Wiyot villages built along Humboldt Bay and the nearby river banks
The Wiyot diet consisted mainly of , Berry, shellfish, salmon, deer, elk, and other small game.
The Wiyot name for Humboldt Bay is Wigi. Later encounters between settlers and the Wiyot people turned violent, as the settlers encroached on traditional territories. A small group of settlers perpetrated what is known as the 1860 Wiyot Massacre. Every year, around the month of February, the Wiyot people would gather for their World Renewal Ceremony on Indian Island, which lasted 7 to 10 days. During this ceremony, the men would leave each night to replenish supplies, leaving women, children, and elders on the island to rest. In the early morning hours of February 26, 1860, local settlers from the nearby town of Eureka descended onto Indian Island armed with firearms, clubs, knives, and hatchets. For over an hour, the group of settlers killed and mutilated every single Wiyot they could find. The majority of those murdered were women, children, and elders. The remaining survivors, including those on and off the island, were rounded up and then imprisoned at Fort Humboldt.
Through grassroots fundraising, and with the help of the community and individual donors, the Wiyot Tribe was able to purchase back 1.5 acres of the historic village site of Tuluwat on Indian Island in 2000, and in 2004, the Eureka City Council made history as they unanimously approved a resolution to return approximately 45 acres, comprising the northeastern tip of Indian Island, to the Wiyot Tribe.
In 1849, an expedition of seven men led by Josiah Gregg attempted to find an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. They left the gold town of Weaverville for the 150-mile westward trek to the sea. Because of the density of the redwood forests, and because Gregg stopped frequently to measure latitude and the size of the trees, the expedition averaged only two miles per day. The party was near starvation when they emerged on the coast, where on 20 December 1849 they discovered what is now known as Humboldt Bay. After stocking up on food, the party walked to San Francisco to report their discovery of the bay.
In March 1850, two ships, the General Morgan and the Laura Virginia, were sent to the bay from San Francisco. After considerable initial difficulty with waves breaking heavily over shifting sands of the bar crossing, the ships entered the bay in 1850. The members of the Laura Virginia company named the bay after Alexander von Humboldt, a noted German natural history of that time.
Humboldt Bay was charted by the United States Coast Survey in 1850, although the map was not published until 1851.
After two years of white settlement on Humboldt Bay, in 1852 only six ships sailed from the bay to San Francisco. But by 1853, on the same route, 143 ships loaded with lumber for markets crossed the bar. Of those, despite the best efforts of local pilots and tugs, 12 ships wrecked on the bar. In times of bad weather, ships could be forced to remain in harbor for weeks before attempting the crossing. The first marker at the harbor entrance was placed in 1853.
The U.S. Federal Government authorized funds for a lighthouse near the mouth to improve navigation. In 1856 the Humboldt Harbor Light was built on the north spit. In 1872 a bell boat was added, and two years later, a steam whistle replaced the bell to assist mariners during times of dense fog. Eighty-one people drowned between 1853 and 1880 during bar crossings, including the captain of the brig Crimea, who was washed overboard while crossing the bar on 18 February 1870. The Humboldt Bay Life-Saving Station is on the bay side of the North Spit, south of the World War II era blimp base.
By the 1880s, long wharf were built into the bay for easier loading of lumber shipments. Shipbuilding became part of local industry. The Bendixson shipyards produced 120 ships on Humboldt Bay. The volume of shipping reached about 600 vessels a year by 1881. Humboldt Bay was made an official United States port of entry in 1882, a status that permitted shipping from there directly to overseas ports. In 1886, fierce storms nearly destroyed the Harbor Light, and it was replaced by the Table Bluff Light.
In 1968, land ownership along the Bay became the focal point of a legal battle, when a lawsuit was filed against the City of Eureka to determine legal ownership of land along the Eureka waterfront. The litigation spanned 13 years and involved extensive historical research, including evidence of original deeds and lawsuits dating back to before the establishment of the city. This became known as the Eureka Tidelands Case, or Lazio v. City of Eureka. These documents, along with copies of many historical maps as well as a series of contemporary aerial photographs and archaeological findings commissioned for the case, are included in Cal Poly Humboldt's Eureka Waterfront Litigation Collection.
In 1971 and 1984, were added in two layers to secure the jetties, which are maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1972, 4,796 dolosse were manufactured locally; 4,795 of them are on the jetties, and one was installed outside the Eureka Chamber of Commerce. The donated dolos was slated for demolition due to sale of this property by the City of Eureka in 2022, but it was relocated to Madaket Plaza through a community effort. In 1983, 1,000 more dolosse were made at the South Spit yard and left to cure; local newspapers named the curing site "Humboldt's Stonehenge." In 1985, 450 of the dolosse were shipped around the bay to be placed on the North Spit. At that point, more than $20,000,000 had been spent in total to protect the entrance to Humboldt Bay.
In 1977 the jetties were named an American Society of Civil Engineers California historical civil engineering landmark. They were designated in 1981 as a national historical civil engineering landmark. The jetties are inspected annually by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1996, the inspection showed that 34 of the dolosse had cracked, 17 on each jetty, mostly near the southern seaward head.
Dredging of channels for shipping began in 1881; periodic dredging of the entrance and shipping channels maintains a depth of . These cumulative changes and water action have resulted in severe erosion at the bay's entrance, where approximately of Buhne Point, which had formerly visually blocked the entrance to the bay, washed away between 1854 and 1955. Most of the large sloughs around the bay have been protected with . But because of development by residents and businesses, of the of historic intertidal marsh, only about 10% remains. Other marsh areas were lost to land reclamation for hay or pasture, and construction of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in 1901. This reduced tidal connectivity along the eastern edge of the bay, which resulted in deterioration of large areas of marsh habitat.
In the winter, the bay serves as a feeding and resting site for more than 100,000 birds. Among these are gull species, Caspian tern, brown pelican, cormorant, surf scoter, and common murre.
The bay is a source of subsistence for a variety of salt-water fish, crustaceans, and mollusks. Sport fishing is permitted. Dungeness crab are fished privately and commercially, and are commercially farmed in the bay. The bay supports more than 100 species of marine and estuarine fish, including green sturgeon, coho salmon and Chinook salmon, rainbow trout and coastal cutthroat trout, which spawn and rear in its watershed, covering an area of . Coho salmon primarily rear and spawn in Elk River, Freshwater Creek, and Jacoby Creek. A recent study found that 40% of coho in the system rear in the estuary. The federally endangered tidewater goby is found in the bay, along with more common three-spined stickleback, shiner perch and Pacific staghorn sculpin.
The bay has been invaded by the European green crab, a voracious predator that is known to prey on the young of native crab species, as well as native mussels, oysters, and clams. European green crab were first documented in Humboldt Bay in 1995 and have been blamed for a decline in clam harvesting. Scientists have not found a way to control them. Marine mammals are represented by Harbour porpoise, harbor seal, California sea lion and river otter, with Steller sea lion and gray whale found immediately offshore. have been reported inside the bay, which also provides habitat for young , feeding on , , , worms, , , various and Isopoda.
Settlements located on or near the bay, listed clockwise from the north side of the bay entrance:
Dangerous sand bars and shifting currents have caused many shipwrecks at the entrance to Humboldt Bay, particularly during the late nineteenth century. Forty-two ships were wrecked in and around the channel, most of them while under tow by a piloted tug boat. Fifty-four ships were wrecked on the Humboldt County coastline. Most shipwrecks occurred between 1850 and 1899.
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