Happy Camp News

At noon the booths were open with toys, concessions and vendors. It was Kids Day at the park with inflatable water slide, obstacle course, bounce house sponsored by Clinic Pharmacy, Kingfisher Market, Karuk Tribe TERO program, Double J & Pizza House, Karuk Tribe Housing Authority and Siskiyou Telephone.
First 5 Pop-Up Play area was for the Little Campers to come and play. They could decorate a Rubber Ducky, too. That closed at 3 pm. Nap time? No, time for the Bigfoot Baby Contest for the little ones up to 18 months of age. Then was the Diaper Derby.

Dinner was served with a choice of salmon or chicken next to the pavilion.

Then it was time for the Bigfoot Queen coronation and the raffle drawing. The grand prizes $200 cash, $100 cash or a chain saw were sponsored by Connor’s Cardlock and Sears in Yreka. Since you had to be present to win a grand prize many headed for the pavilion for that!! Other prizes did not require your presence.

Laser Tag for Little Bigfoots began again, before the Saturday Night Dance. The Dance featured the live band “The Roadsters” until midnight and the park closed until tomorrow….

The 53rd Bigfoot Jamboree was a great gathering. As the Grand Marshalls, Bill and Ellen Johnson said “It’s when former residents come home to visit and reminisce” and we all “get together again to see old friends and have fun. “

It all begins with planning. Abigail Tower, Julia Peters, Yukon Sakota, Kirk Eadie, Linda Zink, Abigail Yeager and Justina Harrison served as the Committee. They have voted to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Happy Camp Community Center’s play area, a fenced outdoor play area and expanded dance studio.

The River Park opens for the Bigfoot Jamboree at 6 pm on Friday, when booths are ready to offer a variety of food, beauty, leather and other crafts, and support nonprofit organizations of the community. Patrons could “adopt” a duck for the Sundays Ducky Derby when they raced to the finish line for the 11th year. Previously the American Legion had Duck Derby and wore straw hats with ducks “floating” glued on.

The Scavenger hunt was free to enter and the “scavengers” went to Info Booth to get the mini map and learn about their quest! Kick off dinner of Indian Tacos by Amy Strain which you could enjoy at the picnic tables in the beautiful park setting.

Dancing toes, a group of youngsters who dance, gave a performance and had a recognition ceremony. Music went on by singer and songwriter Emily Kinsella. In the meantime the Little Bigfoot’s ages 5 to 8 were playing Laser Tag (and afterwards older players could join with parent permission.)

Vivian the DJ was featured music for Friday night Dance from 8 to 12.

Bright and early the volunteer Fire crew preparing coffee and juice along with Roberta Collum baking delicious pancakes, Fire Chief Eric Haskell cooking up scrambled eggs, and sausage! Breakfast began 7 am at the Fire hall on 4th Avenue and Washington Street. They still served until the sleepy heads arrived by ten o’clock.

At 9 am the 5K Bigfoot Run began with invitations to bike, run, walk or stroll the three mile race by Francine who looked forward to raising funds for Trees and Trails. The Feather River Hotshots ran and Happy Camper’s too. With the $20 entry fee the participants also had a shirt.

Then it was off to Davis Road for registration and staging since the Bigfoot Parade began at 11 am. The theme this year was Enchanted Gardens. Grand Marshalls were bill and Ellen Johnson.

The parade followed the traditional route beginning at Bigfoot Corner on Davis Road and Highway 96. The parade then moves down the highway turning on 2nd Avenue to Indian Creek Road where the participants disperse or go around again.

After the parade the River Park booths and concessions open again. There was Betty’s Mary Kay booth for beauty products, a toy and souvenir place, jewelry, knit hats and scrappers, and Tim Pinkos leather work. Roberta Lantow had delicious blackberry cobbler or pie (with ala mode too!!)

Parade awards were presented. The Chicks with Sticks float won first place and $250 to their favorite charity. Happy Camp Ambulance won first place trophy for the non-float entry and Feather River Hotshots won 2nd.

Haven Yates and his friend Jake Anderson came from Oregon to sing and provide great music! After Ducky Derby winner was proclaimed the 53rd Bigfoot Jamboree came to an end. Everyone could go home to rest and refresh on Monday Labor Day holiday, and perhaps dream of what they can do next year at the jamboree!!

So what are you going to do next year? This entire event is volunteer run and operated and they always appreciate volunteers who will faithfully carry out the fantastic ideas that often are suggested, but for lack of workers seem to dwindle. There will be a new theme, so offer your suggestions when the suggestions jars come out next spring. Suggest your Grand Marshall ideas as well. Many hands make the work so much easier and can give everyone more fun

Judy Bushy
Have you met out new Happy Camp/Oak Knoll District Ranger yet? I really am happy to have Jeremy Sullens and his lovely wife, Julia, and family join our community.

It is great to see Jeremy and Julia becoming active members of our community at gatherings in Happy Camp. While young son, Wyatt is a bit shy yet, his daughter enjoys friends at the Happy Camp Head Start. Jeremy came before Christmas, but things have been busy since then, and Jeremy has been busy being sued and other typical Forest Ranger work for this area of the Klamath National Forest. Julia also studied at Oregon State University and was Former Southern Regional Operations Chief at Idaho Department of Lands.

Jeremy was raised in Prairie City, Oregon, which is a rural area of Eastern Oregon. It was there as a young man he graduated high school and began working seasonally for the Oregon Department of Forestry. His bachelor’s degree is in Forest Management. After he graduated he was Assistant Unit Forester for Pendleton Unit and then stewardship forester, both in Eastern Oregon.After this, he moved to the USDA Forest Service in Boise at the National Inter-agency Fire Center as Fire Analyst for Predictive Services working to identify critical fire danger situations. He also assisted federal, state and local fire managers, in distributing limited resources around the country where they could be most effective, before coming to Happy Camp as our District Ranger.

Jeremy sums it up, “We enjoy being in the outdoors and are excited to be back in the small town environment that Happy Camp provides.”

Welcome to the Sullens family to the lovely wild Klamath River community!!

By Judy Bushy
There was a time in Happy Camp when the Karuk Tribe was the whole culture here. They were fortunate in the surroundings which provided generous harvest of acorns, berries, salmon and venison and many other food sources. They were great hunters, clever gatherers, and made beautiful baskets and regalia!

Then there came a few trappers coming through the area, gathering pelts, like Jedediah Smith finding his way back from making it to the Pacific Coast. But trappers were pretty transient, they didn’t stay.
Indian Ned who lived to be 115 told of the first time that he had seen a white man as a teenager. Looking through old records, it seemed most likely they were from a shipwreck on the coast. They didn’t stay long.

Packers went through from an encampment on Scott River heading to the coast. The two murdered men, William Mosier and Mr McGee (or by some give as Mr. Reaves.) gave the new name of “Murder’s Bar” to this place and caused further animosity and violent retribution.

After 1849 discovery of gold which brought on the Gold Rush, some of those gold prospectors came up the Klamath River looking for gold in 1851 and changed the name here to Happy Camp instead of Murder’s Bar. The new name definitely put a more positive view on the town’s public relations. The arrival of the miners meant a lawless time when men came looking to become rich by obtaining enough gold. The gold hunters would hear of a new “find” and head off to possibility of better prospects, so they weren’t very stable. Many gold towns became ghost towns and that might have happened to Happy Camp. It did to Indian Town just up Indian Creek Road, which had a much larger population than Happy Camp at one time. There’s not much left of what used to be Indian Town however, yet Happy Camp endures.

After the Gold Rush, when the gold mining became something that happened more by corporations, the mills that had made lumber for the building of mining equipment became the start of the timber industry that once had five or more mills in the vicinity of Happy Camp. That was a very prosperous time for Happy Camp whether one worked at a mill or falling or hauling logs.

Thanks to cutbacks in available timber, about 1995 the Stone Forest Mill which had round the clock shifts closed, the population was drastically affected. The advice from economics experts seemed to want to trade those good paying jobs for breadwinners in families to tourism paying minimum wages and small business.