Klamath River Overlook

Fred Boring Not a Boring Historian

Happy Camp! What a beautiful place to live! We have so many people here visiting from so many places far and wide. Some come in elegant motor homes, looking to “rough it” in total comfort. Some come homeless, or nearly so as they arrive with few dollars left in their pockets to seek the adventure that is waiting here for them! As in days of old, some come prospecting for gold, some come to float the Klamath River, hunt or fish, or just to enjoy the gorgeous landscape of blue skies over green forested hillsides, along the whitewater Klamath River flowing to the Pacific.
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March Has Arrived
in Happy Camp
With Spring Breezes

Spring comes to Happy Camp!

UPDATE by Judy Bushy

There may be complaints by some that we don’t have a MALL in Happy Camp to go shopping for recreation. Others may think we need bowling alley, amusement parks and other recreational centers. Thinking about what we may lack, or what the opportunities are in our area for recreation, may lead you to many suggestions. But the recreation we can all enjoy the most is having a nice family style dinner with friends and some good conversation.

It was great fun to be invited out by a very gracious hostess and talk with other guests, including a former Happy Camper who has returned. Reminiscences about the Woodsman, the Burger Barn, the old Frosty and other places that everyone in town enjoyed in past decades was interesting. In fact, I hadn’t known that before the Silver Eagle (where Our Place is serving delicious sandwiches with options for games and pool now, used to be a sporting goods store.

To have been here in the days of the soda fountain at the pharmacy in Old Town must have been enjoyable too! I found an ad for “Grizzly Adams” movie to be shown at the Del Rio Movie Theater in Happy Camp, before that theater burned down. Although a swimming pool that could be used for therapeutic uses and a snow park where snow could be enjoyed for recreation would both be great assets, we have so many wonderful miles of trails, and chances to garden and visit with other people that it makes Happy Camp a wonderful place to live.

Can anyone tell me if there was an Oaks Café in Happy Camp? If not, where there might have been an Oaks Café in 1940? We came across photos of it with some of Happy Camp but couldn’t identify it. Anyone with good memory of people and places in Happy Camp in 1935 or 40 with time to identify photos would be most appreciated.

Look at the March Calendar and tell me what needs to be added, see what some of the HCHS Senior Class are doing as they race the last few months to graduation, and learn about what the Truant Officer of Siskiyou County shared at Community Solutions Meeting. Whatever you do, please check out the Opinion page where we have two opinions on the effect of the Siskiyou National Monument on our area.

We thank you for your gracious input. Things are really getting busy around Happy Camp with the coming of spring, it is a beautiful time of year along the wild Klamath River!!

Greyback is open for 2007

By Judy Bushy

Page Mountain Snow Park on Grayback Road in Oregon.

When you talk about “Over the Hill” in Happy Camp, it has nothing to do with anyone’s age! Ever since prospectors found gold here back in the good old days of the previous century, people have been mining north of Happy Camp in places like Indian Town, Waldo, O’Brien, and other little places that have disappeared.

If the Oregon tax collector came to visit, they announced that they were citizens of California. If the California revenue man came by, they announced that they were Oregon residents. Even before that, the Karuk Tribe headed over the hill to trade with tribes in Illinois Valley. Greyback Road has been the center of our double-minded residency ever since.

Driving over the hill is a fantastic route with rare Brewer Spruce and Port Orford Cedar trees. At the top of the hill is a side road off to the Tanner and Bolan Lakes. Bolan Lake was the site of a popular prospecting place that had a bowling alley in the tavern about the same time that Indian Town was prospering. Nowadays they are popular hiking, fishing and camping retreats for the backpacker.

The Page Mountain Snow Park, at the top of the mountain, is on the Oregon side and blocked to us in the winter, but that doesn’t deter enjoying the summer and fall pleasures of hiking and exploring there.

‘Over the Hill’ is a popular path to take whether you go to the Taylor Sausage spot for Saturday night music, stop by Dairy Queen or prefer the Chinese menu at the Golden Dragon Gate. It used to be that there was an outdoor drive-in theater but since the days of home video entertainment, that closed. There is a wild animal cat park that is well worth a visit.

Cave Junction has always been the gateway to the Oregon Caves National Monument. Well, since they will celebrate the hundred-year anniversary in the next couple of years, it has been a long time. Oh, for an expert to teach us spelunking. But barring that, Oregon Cave tours are fascinating.

The Selma Farmer’s Market, the Kirby Historical Museum, burl and wood carving shops, are all good reasons to get out to Oregon.

If you live in Happy Camp, there is no way to go anywhere else, unless you drive Highway 96. You can drive 75 miles to the east of Happy Camp and come to Yreka, and I-5 freeway. You can drive west on Highway 96 to Willow Creek. Once you get to Willow Creek another little drive, total of 120 miles, and you’ll be in Arcata on the way to Eureka and ocean beaches.

Sometimes the Klamath River floods and we can’t get out to Yreka. Sometimes there are rock or mudslides down the mountain and we can’t get out to Willow Creek. All winter long another road, up over Greyback into Oregon that meets with Hwy 199, is closed by snow. But in the summer, that scenic route is one of the favorite routes and the only way out of Happy Camp if you don’t take Hwy 96.

The cabin at Page Mountain Snow Park

State of Jefferson Scenic Byway - Grayback Road