ROAR (Revitalizing Opportunities for the Alderpoint Region)

Alderpoint sits in the Eel River canyon of southeastern Humboldt County and took shape in the late 1800s as a grazing outpost; it grew rapidly around 1910 as a construction hub for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, with a post office opening in 1911 and a small sawmill economy following. (humboldtlafco.org) As timber declined, the local mill shut in 1984 and the rail line through the canyon—costly to maintain and prone to landslides—was eventually abandoned; that corridor is now being converted into the Great Redwood Trail. (humboldtlafco.org) Long before these changes, the area lay within the ancestral homelands of the Wailaki (Kinest’e), part of the Eel River Athapaskan peoples whose territory spans the Eel and North Fork Eel drainages in today’s Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino counties. (Wikipedia) The Wailaki/Kinest’e maintain deep ties through practices such as cultural fire and language lifeways, and in recent years have organized visible cultural revivals—such as the 2024 return and launch of a traditional redwood canoe on the Eel River at Alderpoint. (nativehealthinnativehands.org)