Tag Archives: history

Vikings in Scotland, a Visit to the Brough of Birsay

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Causeway to the Brough of Birsay, Orkney

On the day of my visit, winds gusted to 50 mph as thick furrows of clouds menaced on the horizon. It was fitting, I thought, given the demeanor of the island’s most notorious resident, Thorfinn Sigurdsson, the Viking earl of Orkney. He was described in the Viking history of Orkney, The Orkneyinga Saga, as “…the tallest and strongest of men, ugly, black-haired, sharp-featured, and big-nosed, and with somewhat scowling brows.” Continue Reading →

Chéticamp Brigadoon: Tangled Music Traditions in Cape Breton

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Photo of Harbour Range Front Lighthouse, Chéticamp, Cape Breton-1

Cultural traditions are not always as they seem and their origins are often more complicated than we imagine. So it is with the Acadians and Scots of Nova Scotia, whose unlikely convergence on Cape Breton helped preserve tangled traditions that first traveled to the island with their ancestors many generations earlier. Continue Reading →

The Jackass Hill Mystery

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Drawing of Mark Twain on bullfrog's back by Frederick Waddy, 1872 [Public domain]

He’d been silent, the other man at the bar, gazing into his glass of whiskey before growing animated at the mention of Mark Twain. “I met Twain one time, you know, out near Jackass Hill.”

“You look pretty good for a hundred and fifty years old,” I said in jest, assuming he wasn’t serious.

“It wasn’t all that long ago; a few years back,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone, though he had a faraway look in his eyes as he said it. “For a few hours that day,” he continued, “I became a time traveler.”

The bartender grunted, sounding more annoyed than alarmed, as if he’d heard the line too many times before. He quickly busied himself at the other end of the bar. As the World Series of Poker flickered silently on the TV above us, I sipped my beer and considered my options. Dare I press the matter further?
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Uncovering 1866 Greenwood — Mendocino County Frontier Town

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Survey of Greenwood: Greenwood and Clift's Ridge

The random discovery of an 1866 survey map allows a historical novelist to better reconstruct the frontier town of Greenwood (Elk, CA) along the Mendocino Coast. Continue Reading →

Native Americans of the Redwood Coast

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Image of painting Ma-tu, Pomo Medicine Man by Grace Hudson

When lumber mills first began sprouting up along the 19th century Mendocino coast, Native Americans were still a constant presence. Many indigenous place names were adopted by settlers and remain with us to this day. Others have faded into obscurity. We know, for instance, that the area now known as Mendocino village was originally called Bool-Dam or Buldam by subgroups of the Northern Pomo. Bool-Dam meant “big holes” and referred to the blowholes on the Mendocino headlands. Early maps created after California statehood refer to Big River as Bool-Dam River. Continue Reading →

Lorenzo White: Linchpin of the American Dream?

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Portrait of Lorenzo White from THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, July 4, 1896.

At the peak of Lorenzo White’s success his holdings stretched from Oakland to Fort Bragg. He owned stores, ranches, sawmills, hotels, ferries, saloons, restaurants, real estate, a fleet of ships, and several logging railroads. He commanded the attention of powerful politicians statewide and held sway over four California counties. White’s ambition at times seemed limitless and was the driving force in amassing a considerable fortune. So what can we conclude about L. E. White from this jumbled legacy he’s left us? Was he a mean spirited, ruthless villain and thief or a generous benefactor, a savvy businessman, a civic leader, and an all around stand up guy? Continue Reading →

Lumber Schooners of the Redwood Coast

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Sketch of Lumber Schooner [Public domain]

In the mid-nineteenth century, the sawmills and lumber towns of Mendocino County were isolated from the more settled places that lined San Francisco Bay. The lack of roads, the ungainly North Coast mountains, and the abundant rivers and streams made overland travel difficult and dangerous. Lumber schooners provided the only viable conduit between frontier towns and the civilized world. It was a ship, in fact, that triggered the lumber boom along the redwood coast. Continue Reading →

Invented History: Slipping Story Into the Cracks

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Picture of crack at Ballona Creek, Los Angeles, CA

One of the biggest challenges in writing historical fiction is managing the facts. Sometimes those facts are inconveniently arranged. Other times, there is a paucity of information. The former requires careful structuring of the story. The latter, however, presents a perfect opportunity for the historical novelist to exercise a little freedom in shaping the story. To illustrate this point, we’ll look at two real people who appear in my story, how I used reliable facts, and how I invented history for the gaps or stitched seemingly unrelated facts together. Continue Reading →

Baseball in Gold Rush California

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Drawing of the New York Knickerbockers baseball team during a practice session by Homer Davenport [Public domain]

An author asks himself, “What if a transplanted Easterner taught loggers in 1850s California how to play baseball? Would that be an anachronism?” As it turns out, no. Thanks to Alexander Cartwright, the game of base-ball, a refined form of the older game town ball, spread across the American prairie to California and beyond during the great California Gold Rush. Continue Reading →