Jack London usually sailed west whenever he left the Oakland Municipal Wharf, but on December 18, 1913, he headed east — because he could. Although the canal connecting the Oakland Estuary to San Leandro Bay had been completed in 1902, it wasnât until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers widened and deepened the canal in 1913 that it became navigable.
Aboard the Roamer, a 30-foot yawl London bought used in 1910, Jack and his wife, Charmian, approached the Park Street Bridge. âMate has to hustle for an hour or so to get Park St. Bridge open + weâre first boat that it ever opened for,â Charmian wrote in her diary. The Fruitvale and High Street bridges also swung open, and the couple completed their sail through the Oakland Inner Harbor Tidal Canal. They anchored off Alameda near the old oyster beds, shot a duck, and ate it with artichokes from an Alameda farm.
From 1910 to 1915, well-known American writer Jack London and his wife Charmian spent at least a month a year on the Roamer. Jack wrote most mornings — 1,000 words a day, he claimed — but mostly they sailed and explored the Bay and Delta, or as Jack said, âup Bay and down.â Charmian kept a diary of their explorations, and her truncated observations provide a snapshot of the Estuary in the early 20th century.
âThey loved being on the Roamer because it gave them an escape from Jack’s celebrity,â says Iris Jamahl Dunkle, who used Charmianâs diaries extensively for her new biography, Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer, released by University of Oklahoma Press this month.
One thing that stands out in Charmianâs entries is how well she and Jack ate while on the Bay. They preferred their striped bass raw and their duck nearly so. They ate fish chowder made of âshiners, pike, perch and catfishâ from the Delta, and fished for rock cod and netted crabs near Hospital Cove (now Ayala Cove) off Angel Island. One day in October 1914 they caught more than 40 rock cod. Charmian wrote, âEarly crab lunch with salmon caviar, stuffed celery, fried clams, cauliflower toastâŠSoldiers fishing + swimming off Angel Island.â
On the water they witnessed the rise of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition grounds in San Francisco; skirted clam-dredges, hay scows, and wheat ships; watched the tides carefully; and executed tricky sailing maneuvers through slender sloughs and southeasters. Occasionally, Jack walked into towns such as Martinez and Pittsburg to read Call of the Wild to schoolchildren.
In October 1913, the pair went to Knightâs Landing on the Sacramento River, and drove by car to see the rice fields. âFirst rice we ever saw in Cal,â wrote Charmian, adding that the man behind the rice was meatpacking magnate J. Ogden Armour. He was helping to finance Reclamation District 1500 in the Sutter Basin, but work begun that year to build levees was met with resistance and held up in litigation for many more.
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In December 1914, they anchored in Benicia âwhere the Solano + the new Contra Costa ply back + forth.â Before the Contra Costa was built and put into service that year, the Solano was the largest railroad ferry in the world, capable of carrying up to 48 cars between Benicia and Port Costa, where the railcars coupled to engines and continued their routes.
One of the defining characteristics of the Bay at the turn of the century — and before — was its vibrant immigrant communities, and Charmian touched on these ethnically diverse populations in her diary several times. The Roamer frequently stopped in Walnut Grove on the Sacramento River, where the Londons enjoyed Japanese dinners with sake, and asked Yoshimatsu Nakata, Jackâs valet, to bet on the lottery since white people werenât allowed to participate.
At the mouth of the Feather River, they met the âfamous Kanakas,â wrote Charmian, including a âquaint + loveable old Hawaiianâ that had lived there for 22 years. The Kanakas and their wives brought salmon, striped bass, and carp as gifts.
Near Stockton they stopped at what Charmian described as âa God-forsaken Japanese work-place where the baby-eyed youngâŠ.mother cooks for 40 or 50 men! Such a dreadful life the poor, sweet little âpicture-wivesâ are lured into!â She didnât mention, however, how federal and state immigration laws had contributed to the existence of these camps. In 1913, California passed a law forbidding immigrant farmers from owning land, even though Chinese and Japanese farmers had farmed the Delta for decades.
The Bay has gone through many changes, and continues to change today, but a constant then and now is Mount Diablo. Seen from Georgiana Slough, Charmian described how the âlovely composition is drawn together by Mt. Diablo. So clear + sharp, + even from here we can see the crinkles!â On another day she noted the âcloudy-sunny-wondrously beautiful Mt. Diablo.â On a November cruise she wrote, âSierras white with snow, Mt. Diablo + its range clear-cut sapphire. Tule glistening laid flat. Spouting surf on lee shores in some places. Big scow aground. Ducks flying low.â
Aleta George is at work on a book about Jack London and the San Francisco Bay. The entries quoted here are from the original diaries, JL 215-233, Jack London Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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Hothouse Earth
By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto
Photo by Megan Nguyen
Nothing could be stranger than sitting in the dark with thousands of suits and heels, watching a parade of promises to decarbonize from companies and countries large and small, reeling from the beauties of big screen rainforests and indigenous necklaces, and getting all choked up.
It was day two of the September 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco when I felt it.
At first I wondered if I was simply starstruck. Most of us labor away trying to fix one small corner of the planet or another without seeing the likes of Harrison Ford, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Jerry Brown â or the ministers or mayors of dozens of cities and countries â in person, on stage and at times angry enough to spit. And between these luminaries a steady stream of CEOs, corporate sustainability officers, and pension fund managers promising percentages of renewables and profits in their portfolios dedicated to the climate cause by 2020-2050.
I tried to give every speaker my full attention: the young man of Vuntut Gwichin heritage from the edge of the Yukonâs Arctic National Wildlife Refuge who pleaded with us not to enter his sacred lands with our drills and dependencies; all the women â swathed in bright patterns and head-scarfs â who kept punching their hearts. âMy uncle in Uganda would take 129 years to emit the same amount of carbon as an American would in one year,â said Oxfamâs Winnie Byanyima.
âOur janitors are shutting off the lights you leave on,â said Aida Cardenas, speaking about the frontline workers she trains, mostly immigrants, who are excited to be part of climate change solutions in their new country.
The men on the stage, strutting about in feathers and pinstripes, spoke of hopes and dreams, money and power. âThe notion that you can either do good or do well is a myth we have to collectively bust,â said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy whose state is investing heavily in offshore wind farms.
âClimate change isnât just about risks, itâs about opportunities,â said Blackrock sustainable investment manager Brian Deese.
But it wasnât all these fine speeches that started the butterflies. Halfway through the second day of testimonials, it was a slight white-haired woman wrapped in an azure pashmina that pricked my tears. One minute she was on the silver screen with Alec Baldwin and the next she taking a seat on stage. She talked about trees. How trees can solve 30% of our carbon reduction problem. How we have to stop whacking them back in the Amazon and start planting them everywhere else. I couldnât help thinking of Dr. Seuss and his truffala trees. Jane Goodall, over 80, is as fierce as my Lorax. Or my daughterâs Avatar.
Analyzing my take home feeling from the event I realized it wasnât the usual fear â killer storms, tidal waves, no food for my kids to eat on a half-baked planet â nor a newfound sense of hope â Iâve always thought nature will get along just fine without us. What I felt was relief. People were actually doing something. Doing a lot. And there was so much more we could do.
As we all pumped fists in the dark, as the presentations went on and on and on because so many people and businesses and countries wanted to STEP UP, I realized how swayed I had let myself be by the doomsday news mill.
âWe must be like the river, â said a boy from Bangladesh named Risalat Khan, who had noticed our Sierra watersheds from the plane. âWe must cut through the mountain of obstacles. Letâs be the river!â
Or as Harrison Ford less poetically put it: âLetâs turn off our phones and roll up our sleeves and kick this monsterâs ass.â
4th California Climate Change Assessment Blues
by Isaac Pearlman
Since Californiaâs last state-led climate change assessment in 2012, the Golden State has experienced a litany of natural disasters. This includes four years of severe drought from 2012 to 2016, an almost non-existent Sierra Nevada snowpack in 2014-2015 costing $2.1 billion in economic losses, widespread Bay Area flooding from winter 2017 storms, and extremely large and damaging wildfires culminating with this yearâs Mendocino Complex fire achieving the dubious distinction of the largest in state history. Californiaâs most recent climate assessment, released August 27th, predicts that for the state and the Bay Area, we can expect even more in the future.
The California state government first began assessing climate impacts formally in 2006, due to an executive order by Governor Schwarzenegger. Californiaâs latest iteration and its fourth overall, includes a dizzying array of 44 technical reports; three topical studies on climate justice, tribal and indigenous communities, and the coast and ocean; as well as nine region-specific analyses.
The results are alarming for our stateâs future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.
For the first time, Californiaâs latest assessment dives into climate consequences on a regional level. Academics representing nine California regions spearheaded research and summarized the best available science on the variable heat, rain, flooding and extreme event consequences for their areas. For example, the highest local rate of sea level rise in the state is at the rapidly subsiding Humboldt Bay. In San Diego county, the most biodiverse in all of California, preserving its many fragile and endangered species is an urgent priority. Francesca Hopkins from UC Riverside found that the highest rate of childhood asthma in the state isnât an urban smog-filled city but in the Imperial Valley, where toxic dust from Salton Sea disaster chokes communities â and will only become worse as higher temperatures and less water due to climate change dry and brittle the area.
According to the Bay Area Regional Report, since 1950 the Bay Area has already increased in temperature by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit and local sea level is eight inches higher than it was one hundred years ago. Future climate will render the Bay Area less suitable for our evergreen redwood and fir forests, and more favorable for tolerant chaparral shrub land. The regionâs seven million people and $750 billion economy (almost one-third of Californiaâs total) is predicted to be increasingly beset by more âboom and bustâ irregular wet and very dry years, punctuated by increasingly intense and damaging storms.
Unsurprisingly, according to the report the Bay Areaâs intensifying housing and equity problems have a multiplier affect with climate change. As Bay Area housing spreads further north, south, and inland the result is higher transportation and energy needs for those with the fewest resources available to afford them; and acute disparity in climate vulnerability across Bay Area communities and populations.
âAll Californians will likely endure more illness and be at greater risk of early death because of climate change,â bluntly states the statewide summary brochure for Californiaâs climate assessment. â[However] vulnerable populations that already experience the greatest adverse health impacts will be disproportionately affected.â
âWeâre much better at being reactive to a disaster than planning ahead,â said UC Berkeley professor and contributing author David Ackerly at a California Adaptation Forum panel in Sacramento on August 27th. âAnd it is vulnerable communities that suffer from those disasters. How much human suffering has to happen before it triggers the next round of activity?â
The assessmentâs data is publicly available online at âCal-adapt,â where Californians can explore projected impacts for their neighborhoods, towns, and regions.
The results are alarming for our stateâs future: an estimated four to five feet of sea level rise and loss of one to two-thirds of Southern California beaches by 2100, a 50 percent increase in wildfires over 25,000 acres, stronger and longer heat waves, and infrastructure like airports, wastewater treatment plants, rail and roadways increasingly likely to suffer flooding.