MENDOCINO NEWS

ABALONE, SEALS, PLANTS, BIRDS, LUMBERING AND SCHOONERS OF LITTLE RIVER, CALIFORNIA

By Akkeeia

At Little River California, north on Highway 1, coastal brush and grasslands blend into lush growths of Bishop Pine, Douglas Fir, Madrone, Tan Oak, groves of second growth Redwood and quiet meadow areas. There, less than one mile north of Little River, you’ll find Stevenswood Resort and Spa nestled in an area where elk once grazed. 

At Stevenswood Resort and Spa you may see black-tailed deer, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, gray foxes, badgers, striped skunks, and dozens of varieties of rodents such as squirrels, chipmunks, and field mice that are native to this area. Bears and mountain lions occasionally range the area, although visitors rarely see them.

Just across the street from Stevenswood Resort and Spa there is easy public access to the forest, grassland, and ocean's shore and bluff’s where its said you can see some of the worlds best sunsets and if you look carefully you may see the Green Flash. The area also hosts a huge variety of birds and Little River’s Famous White Spotted Seals.

Looking out any room window at Stevenswood Resort and Spa or out of the five star Restaurant at Stevenswood dining room windows you are likely to see a vast variety of California's north coast bird population, such as pelicans, osprey, woodpeckers (including Pileated), oyster catchers, morning dove, California valley quail, Steller's jays, scrub jays, European ring neck pigeons, red breasted robins a huge variety of humming birds, and ravens feeding, and wild turkeys roaming the picturesque property and bontanical gardens.

The Little River coastal area is famous for its red abalone, the major diving attraction, along the Mendocino Coast.  It is basically an unlimited area of excellent diving.  However, the conditions tend to be quite challenging and access from the bluffs can be extremely difficult and dangerous.  Also, finding a place to park at the most popular dive sites may be a difficult task.  Fortunately, there are plenty of these delectable mollusks for everyone.  The red abalone (Haliotis rufescens) is a slow-growing aquatic snail and is an important part of the tidal community.  It takes an abalone an average of 10 years to reach a legal hunting size of a diameter of 7 inches.  Abalone hunting is a top tourist attraction along the Mendocino Coast.  Almost 100% of California’s sport abalone effort is concentrated along the Sonoma and Mendocino County coasts (mostly in Mendocino).  The abalone tourist sports group is estimated to spend over $10 million a season within our sleepy, north coast communities.  They come to Mendocino because this area has the greatest abundance of red abalone.  Many families plan their entire vacation around the abalone pursuit.  Expensive dive equipment, kayaks, inflatables, boats and outboards are common.  Due to the incredible beauty of the area, both in and out of the water, most divers consider this to be their favorite destination. The algae provide a beautiful, fascinating lush playground, with interesting and colorful invertebrate life on the surfaces and cracks of the rocks.  The reef fish are always spectacularly colored.  These are just some of the reasons, along with the ample guest parking, so many abalone divers consider Stevenswood Resort and Spa the diver’s “home away from the water.” 

The rocky and scenic coastal waters feature extensive kelp forests providing excellent habitat for both abalone and fish.  Bull kelp is the predominate kelp species and Little River Bay at Van Damme State Beach features one of California’s northern-most stands of Giant Kelp. Bull kelp thrives along the Pacific coast.  In April, no kelp is visible from the shore, but its growth has already begun.  Attaching to rocks, it will grow up to 10 inches per day as it reaches for sunlight at the ocean's surface.  In August, the water is dark with the lush kelp forest that provides homes for numerous varieties of fish, marine organisms, and the famous Little River white spotted seals.

Van Damme State Park consists of 1,831 acres of beach and upland on the Mendocino Coast.  Of all park system units along the Mendocino Coast, Van Damme is perhaps the richest in terms of historical resources connected with the redwood lumber industry.  Its story is a prime example of the struggles and eventual failures of a small, independent lumber operation.

The park is located three miles south of the town of Mendocino on Highway 1.  The highway runs through the park, separating the campground and the Fern Canyon trailhead to the east and the beach and parking lot to the west.

The weather can be fickle.  Layered clothing is recommended.

The park features the lush Fern Canyon Scenic Trail system, the Pygmy Forest, where mature, cone-bearing cypress and pine trees stand six inches to eight feet tall, and the bog, or Cabbage Patch, where skunk cabbage grows in abundance. The park’s ten miles of trail go along the fern-carpeted canyon of Little River.  Joggers and bicyclists can use a paved road.

The beach is popular with abalone divers. The really spectacular abalone diving is not near the beach, but in the rugged coast just south and north of the beach.  On any clear day you can snorkel on the surface of the water and see 8 to 9 inch or bigger abalone just 15 to 20 feet below the surface.  The local abalone are so plentiful you can find them clinging to one another.  This is a wonderful place to free dive since the abs are intertwined with a colorful assortment of sea stars and giant green anemones.  Spear fishing is tremendous because of the great number of large lingcod and rock scallops.  A little deeper you’ll see schools of blue rockfish, big black rockfish, and some cabezon. The ever-present and dangerous Great White Shark is also known to patrol these waters.  The coastline both north and south is loaded with caves, arches and Little River’s White Spotted Seals “hauling out” on the rocks.  In the sandy bottom off the beach some nice halibut have been seen and during the season Little River kings and steelhead are running.

To hunt abalone in California you’ll need a fishing license with an abalone stamp, a punch card, a legal abalone iron, a legal abalone gauge, and a float to hold your catch. Fish and game regulations should be consulted for what “legal” means.  Your local dive shop can outfit you with what you will need.

Visitors can get a unique perspective of the coastline by taking the kayak tours, available through a concession agreement, at the Van Damme beach parking lot.

Van Damme State Park and Beach

According to their web site, Van Damme State Park was named for Charles Van Damme who was born at Little River in 1881, son of John and Louise Van Damme, early settlers of the region.  John Van Damme and his wife were Flemish.  The patriarch of the family was born in Ostend, Belgium on May 22, 1832.  "Following the sea" for some years, Van Damme, upon his arrival in Mendocino County, later worked in the lumber mill at Little River.  In this settlement all of his children were born, including Charles, whose love for the area prompted his acquiring, after some years as a successful operator of the Richmond-San Rafael ferry line, a plot of ground along the Redwood coast. Upon his demise this area became a part of the State Park System in 1934.

Because of its protected port, Little River quickly grew into a bustling town with a mill, two chutes, a shipyard, and a railroad.

In those early days lumbering was a major economic factor in the development of the northern coastline.  Little River was built as a mill town in 1864 by Ruel Stickney, Silas Coombs and Tapping Reeves after the property, formally called Kents Cove, was purchased from W. H. Kent in 1862.  Before long it had attained fame, not only as a lumber port but also as a shipyard.  A stand of timber, if logged, does not last forever and by the end of the century, even though logging was periodically moved back into the headwaters of Little River, the mill was forced to close (1893).

What there was left of Little River soon deteriorated including the shipyard, the wharf, the town, several chutes for loading lumber and the lumber mill itself.  Activity at the port, which once was bustling, declined.  Little River's school, once attended by close to 100 students, closed. Its weekly steamship service ended, and a shipyard where, in 1874, Captain Thomas Peterson turned out full-size lumber schooners for the coast wide trade, phased out.  Only the schooner Little River returned, to be wrecked on the very beach from which it originally departed.

Plagued by a lack of sufficient timber reserves, fires, loss of substantial business, deterioration of wharf's and chutes, the end of coast wide shipping and the attendant decline in population, Little River reverted to a natural state. Its acquisition by the State Park System in 1934, and the subsequent addition of peripheral lands has preserved some of California's most interesting natural resources.