Inside California’s Poorest County

[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
[Peter] Good morning, guys.
Today we have an epic roadtrip ahead of us
We’re gonna be going
over these mountainshere
to the poorest county in California,
Trinity County.
I think it’s fair to say California is one
of the most mixed up states in the country
if not the most.
What we’re gonna see today
is a completely different world
than say Los Angeles or San Francisco.
So we’re gonna hit
the back roads out here,
get lost in this rugged landscape,
talk to the locals,
hear what they have to say,
see the beautiful sites,
and learn a thing or two.
Let’s do this.
[music continues]
[Peter] Here we are, Trinity County.
Mean income of $42,000 per person.
Santa Clara County, the richest county
in the state in the Bay Area
is $154,000 per person.
So huge divide on that front
but there are only 16,000 people
living in the county.
It’s around 3,200 square miles.
So it’s very sparsely populated
with only a few small towns in it
and here’s our first bit of civilization.
Some old rundown buildings.
Just very wild landscapes out here
I’ve actually been driving
for quite some time.
I’ve had the camera off
’cause it’s just cruising
and this is one of the most
remote parts of the country in a way
as far as big cities being around.
You can see that times were better
here in Trinity County
What’s that, an old arcade?
Some storage units?
Let’s check out this store.
Salyer Store,
they got the Bigfoot up there.
-How you doin’, boss?
-Pretty good. You?
Good, you guys got
Bigfoot sightings out here?
-There’s been lore about it.
I’ve never personally seen it
but people talk about it a lot.
[Peter] You believe?
-I think there’s something
out there, yeah.
The woods are beautiful
but they can be eerie
especially at night time,
mist, fog settles in too.
It’s like you hear noises. What is that?
[both laugh]
-[man] Never know.
-[Peter] Yeah.
Hello, sir. I want t to know
about Bigfoot, are you a believer?
-Sasquatch?
-Sasquatch.
When it started, the guy that was…
-Bear sh*t in the woods.
-[laughter]
-So that’s the story, it was a bear?
-Couple guys started that.
-Oh, started the rumor?
-Yeah.
Put things on their feet
and was like making tracks.
-No way.
How is it living out here?
It’s the only place I’ve lived
since 1955.
[woman] It’s the most beautiful place
in the world.
[Peter] It is beautiful.
Used to work in a sawmill in Bear Ranch.
-You worked at the sawmill?
-For 37 years.
-The Endangered Species Act got it.
-Shut it down?
-We couldn’t get no more timber.
-What did you do for work after that?
Worked over at Pacific Choice.
It’s a seafood place in Eureka.
-You drove all the way to Eureka?
-Every day.
[Peter] How far is that, hour and a half?
No, I can make it in less than that.
So I figured I’m working on that
till I retire.
-Gotcha.
Then when
the Endangered Species Act kept…
Because the spotted owl,
couldn’t get no more timber.
So the mill faded away.
-Is that still big out here, timber?
There ain’t no timber?
-No timber?
-Owl got it.
-The owl got it?
-Spotted owl.
Now the barn owl’s
eating spotted owls. [laughs]
-So what’s the industry out here now?
There isn’t any. That’s just it.
-Nothing?
Tried pot for a while.
-Growing?
-[laughs]
-How did that go?
-That got a little spooky.
Spooky why?
You gotta keep looking over your shoulder.
[man 2] $4,000 or $5,000 a pound
it used to be.
-$4,000 or $5,000 a pound?
Yeah, at least that.
-So you had timber, you had weed,
now you’re looking–
-Nothing.
-Nothing?
Just old age pension. [laughs]
[Peter] Old age pension, all right.
Thanks, guys.
-Okay.
-Right on. What’s your name?
Peter, I have a son named Peter.
-Okay, good name.
Keep it going. That’s good to hear.
[Peter] All the best.
[door beeps]
-Hello.
-Hello, how you doing, ma’am?
-Okay.
[Peter] The old Burnt Ranch Store.
Looks like the last iteration
was a kayak operation.
We’re starting to
get into it though, guys.
Around the 1850s is when
gold was found in these mountains.
People came west
from the east
and the town we’re going to
had 2,000 Chinese that lived there.
They had their own Chinataown
and they were part of the gold operations,
the mining operations back in the day.
The spaces between are massive here.
The camera’s off most of the time
because it’s just long stretches of road
without any people.
You see occasiaonal houses like that
and then markers of the old world.
We drove roughly 55 miles
from where we started today
and now we’re in the town of Weaverville.
Only 3,500 people live here
but it’s the biggest town in the county.
County seat.
Gotta say, quite a cool looking place.
Old architecture.
-Hello.
-Hey, how you doing?
-I’m good. How are you?
-Good.
All these old buildings what?
-They are the original
buildings on Main Street.
-Okay.
-It’s really cool.
-They have, if you go to the front…
-Yeah
We have… ’cause this was
a Chinese mining town
and of course during segreation and stuff
and so Chinese men weren’t allowed out
past 5:00 PM so they built
a tunnel system underneath.
-No way.
-Mm-hmm.
Weaverville, so they could get
from bar to bar.
It’s all blocked in now
but our whole storage unit
underneath the ground,
if you go and order you can walk over it
but I can’t open it for ya.
-Okay, gotcha.
Just safety-wise but…
-How was growing up here?
So fun.
-So fun?
-So fun, yeah.
I just moved home.
I graduated college in June.
I think as a teenager, you’re like,
“It’s small, I wanna get out.”
-Sure.
-Go experience things.
But it’s a lot of fun.
Very Hallmark.
You watch Hallmark movies at all?
I don’t but what’s that,
like Pleasantville?
Yeah, like very… just cheesey.
Like holiday town.
I went to school in San Luis Obispo
and it is so much different than here.
People have never heard of Weaverville
You get up and introduce yourself,
“My name’s Alissa, I’m from Weaverville.”
“Where?”
-Right, that’s Central Coast,
what’s that,
like seven hours of driving?
-Yeah, it’s like eight and a half.
-Eight and a half?
-You guys are out there.
-Yeah.
No, we’re up in the boonies.
-It’s cool. All right.
Im gonna check this out up here.
-Please do.
-All right, thank you.
-Yeah, of course.
[Peter] These beautiful archways here.
-How you doing, sir?
-How are you?
-Doing well.
-Good.
-Do you live in town? How are things?
-How you doing, man?
Good, I’m making a video
on Trinity County.
-Okay.
-Oh, gosh.
Do you guys wanna jump in it?
-Depends on what is your outlook?
-My outlook is I have none.
I just talk to the locals
and it’s really their outlook.
It’s the friendliest town
I’ve ever been in.
-Friendliest town you’ve been in?
-Yeah.
Even though there are people
that are right wing.
-It’s right wing?
-Yeah, yeah.
-Oh, and you’re not. “Dump Trump”?
-Yeah.
-Okay.
-Don’t get him started on this.
-Don’t? Okay.
-No, no.
Is this the underground way
for the Chinese back in the day?
-This whole block system
had underground areas
where they would, as I understand it,
the Asian community
used to be able to
move through the community.
-From this building… this one,
next one, next one, next one,
are all connected.
Looking through that door
and you could go through here
and this door on the other side.
-But they’ve been blocked off.
-Okay.
[Peter] Oh, they have cookies here.
-Yeah.
-We just made these today also.
-Okay, I’m in.
-Just one of ’em?
-Yep.
-[Peter] Thank you.
-[man] I’m gonna open this up.
All right.
-All right, my friend.
-Yeah, take care. All the best.
All right, this place is fantastic,
Mamma Llama Eatery.
-Yeah, take care, guys.
-Yeah, all right.
If you’re in Weaverville
get the homemade cookies.
Okay.
Here’s what prices look like
in the region.
$400,000 for that cabin.
$275,000 for that three bed,
one point five bath.
2,200 square feet, 2.9 acres,
$459,000.
So depending on where you’re from
that’s either cheap or expensive.
From the urban parts
of the state this is a true value
but there are no jobs most likely
or very few.
Seperate ownership
external spiral staircases.
Cool architectural details here.
We have Diggin’s.
-How you guys doing?
-Good.
I’m just making a video
of Weaverville. Is this a cool place?
Yeah, this whole building’s
been here since 1856.
-What was it?
-What was this before? A bank?
-Yeah, a a bank.
That’s cool.
-It’s been a bar since the ’50s.
-You guys from town?
-‘Round here, yeah.
What’s going on out here
other than a beautiful town?
Nothing really, just a bunch of rednecks
and logging really.
-Is logging still happening?
-Oh, yeah.
The mills right down there.
-Oh, really?
-Yeah.
-They’re still hiring people?
-Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Other than working for Caltrans,
like, you know, the highways.
That’s probably the best local job.
-Okay what do they pay
do you think to start there?
Probably at least between 18 to 22.
-And that means
you’re out in the forest?
-No, no that’s at the mill.
-Okay.
That’s actually working at the mill
not out there logging.
Those are all private
companies that feed the mill.
-Okay.
So bringing in the logs and the mill’s
cutting down boards, everything like that.
-And the mill’s privately owned?
-Yeah.
So it’s important
for the community having that?
-Huge.
-Huge?
If the mill went down like that’s
why the Hayfork’s a ghost town.
Hayfork’s a ghost town.
The only thing I kept Hayfork
alive to this day is weed.
After the mill shut down, Weaverville’s
mill’s all we got in Trinity.
The mill shut down,
then the town shut down?
-Yeah, for the most part.
-Okay.
It dwindled down, that’s for sure.
-That was a long time ago.
-You grew up here?
-No, I’m from Nebraska.
-Whoa.
Well got you out here?
Cannabis.
Well, that business
isn’t so good right now.
-Hell no. It’s gone.
-It’s gone?
That’s one thing that
kept this town alive.
I mean, up until California made
it recreational for the whole state.
if you had to be 21, just go buy it.
We had people all over the world.
Our little 3,000 people town,
we’d have 45,000 people from around
the world coming here to trim weed.
-Trimigrants, that’s what we call them.
-Trimigrants?
They would get their 90 day visas,
come out here to Humboldt,
and just trim weed.
Go back to wherever, France,
I met people all around the world.
-Okay, so you had a lot of Europeans come?
And then South Americans,
Chile, Argentina, France, Spain.
-The trimigrant gets the 90 day visa,
comes and works.
-And then it goes back home.
-Makes a bunch of money, goes home?
-Yeah.
-But no longer?
-No, it’s dying now.
-If the economy is hurting,
why does the town look so nice?
It looks really nice here.
It’s been this way, it hasn’t changed.
All this brick is the same
brick since the 1800s.
-These were like brothels,
and bars, and hotels.
-Was that a brothel?
-Yeah.
This was the New York Saloon,
one of the oldest places here.
Yeah, this was all the gold rush.
This was formed by the gold rush
back in the day.
-This is your ride?
-Yep, I’m out of here.
-What’s your name?
-Bret.
-Bret, Peter.
-Nice to meet you.
Enjoy our beautiful little town.
Thanks, Bret, all the best.
What a cool place.
Guys, just been here
a few minutes, really
and got right into conversation.
People are friendly.
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Now back to the story.
We have the hydraulic monitor or giant
Fisher-Patton 1870
used at Bloss McClary Mine.
And so they would set up these
hydraulic giants, as they say,
and blast the water
into the side of the mountain.
And pull away the dirt
and out would come the gold.
I believe that’s how that worked.
It was because of that gold
the money trickled down,
created a town with nice architecture
and a thriving economy
gun fights, brothels,
all sorts of wildness back in the day.
[lock rattles]
Oh, wrong day.
[woman] Friday night, I think.
-I have two lemon zucchini breads left.
-Okay.
-Do you mind,
I’m making a video on Trinity County?
-Oh well–
-Are you from here?
Yeah, I live in Poker Bar. Yeah.
Poker Bar Farms Bakery.
-Uh oh, my sign.
-Okay.
-So this is your bakery?
-Yeah.
This is the farmer’s market location
right here.
-Okay.
At the Meadow and we have
like it stops in mid-October.
-Okay.
-And I just almost sold out.
I make Greek stuff.
I make baklava.
-Oh cool.
-This is milopita, it’s apple.
I just had a cookie,
but I’m gonna have to try this.
-Okay.
-Can you hold this?
-Yeah.
Here we go… milopita.
-Greek apple cake.
-Homemade?
-Of course.
-You make it?
-Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
-Good?
Fantastic.
I make a lot of Greek…
I’m half Greek, so.
-Look at that apple. Fresh apples.
-Fresh apples.
Actually, off trees in Lewiston.
-In Lewiston nearby?
-Yeah.
And I make baklava
and the kourabiedes cookies.
Yeah, I’m the Greek baker.
-So how are things in Weaverville?
Well, we were just talking about
how to come up with some great activities.
’cause that one gal in the black,
she owns Yantra,
and she can’t open it ’cause she doesn’t
have a ADA compliant bathroom.
-Oh.
So she’s thinking about
like a private wine bar or something.
-Okay.
But there’s a lot of that, you know,
all along the main street here.
The first Saturday of every month
they have an art walk
and all businesses open.
-I had no idea it would
be so nice out here.
Oh, it’s beautiful.
-I thought Trinity County is technically
the poorest county in the state.
Yeah.
-So I thought it’d be all run down.
No, the people are poor
but they have a lot of volunteerism
and community groups that are real active.
-Okay.
-I’m retired, but I do…
-[both chuckle]
-That guy’s fired up.
-I know.
He’s been coming back and forth all day.
-We know Trump won the election.
-Yeah, so…
But yeah, they have a lot of events
like they have the Salmon
and Harvest Festival here.
They have events
throughout the year for people
and they have a lot of music.
They have a lot of entertainment,
very talented artists.
We get tourism dollars come in.
I do a lot of Airbnb myself.
I’m busy all throughout the season.
It slows down in the fall
but the fishermen
are, you know,
come all throughout the year
for the fishing and it’s good right now.
[truck passes]
Let’s check this place out of here.
Hello, sir.
-Pearson B. Redding came over from–
-Yeah.
[Peter] Who came over?
This guy right up here.
-This guy?
-Yeah, that’s Pearson B. Redding.
Okay, so Redding is named
after this guy?
-Redding was originally going
to be named after this guy.
-Reading.
-Reading?
No, no.
The English pronounce this as Redding.
-We pronounce it reading.
-I know.
[Peter] And you’re
five generations, Weaverville?
I’m four-plus generations,
Humboldt County.
-So 1849, California Gold Rush,
but it happened here, 1850.
-Bunch of people moved from the East.
-Yeah, from all over, basically.
Kids who were growing up on farms too
small in Indiana, you know, or Louisiana.
The late 40s were economically tough,
not only in the United States,
but in Europe.
It was a worldwide recession,
not too deep, but felt everywhere.
The sound of gold discovery
in California in the media
brought people from a lot of places.
A lot of German names
up in those pictures.
-Okay, yeah.
-There were a lot of French came here,
but virtually everybody.
The year 1848 saw
revolutions all across Europe
and also a collapse
of the French government.
-So the French, the Germans, would hear of
this in Europe, they’d get on a boat,
come over here, come to the east coast,
then across the country?
Some might’ve come across the country,
some came around the horn.
That is a sketch of Weaverville
made in 1850, a charcoal sketch,
and at that time it was a town made out of
woodhouses, woods readily appropriable.
The major part of
the wooden structure in the town
was burned out by succession of fires
and merchants who got
enough money rebuilt in brick.
So all this historic district
is brick up here.
[Peter] So fair to say these were
some of the most ambitious people
in Europe or some of the most desperate?
-They were desperate
and also the European education system
functioned a lot differently, you know?
Because you’re talking about
a society that has a denser population
than the mid-continent part of the US had
and certainly the West.
So these people were the successful ones.
There’s also a fair number of English,
and Irish, and Scotch immigrants as well.
That’s Jim that’s obviously not German.
Lorenz, and he was the most
prosperous hydraulic miner in the county.
-This guy?
-Yeah.
If you go on to
Redding on California Street
you’ll see the Lorenz Hotel,
a big three-story imposing brick hotel.
So if it was gold at one time,
timber still going to some degree,
it was pot.
-This is the Emerald Triangle?
-Part of the Emerald Triangle.
With Humboldt
and Mendocino County.
So back before 2016, before it became
legalized for recreational use
the small farms
were all around here, correct?
-There were a lot of them.
-Okay. Do you miss those days or no?
Well, I was never involved in that at all.
-I was kind of–
-You didn’t Inhale, that’s good.
-No.
-[laughter]
I came from a ranching family and we
had Mexican cartel guys invade our place.
-Really? What year?
-Yeah.
Early in the 2000s and…
-What do you mean
they invaded your place?
They trespassed and built
a farm with about 20,000 plants.
-And there’s nothing you could do?
-You have to find it first.
They’re pretty good
at hiding those things.
And so I worked with the sheriff’s
office and we got rid of them.
They’re still here, not the numbers
they used to be, but they’re still here.
-They’re still growing?
-They’re still growing, yeah.
-[man 2 ] In the back country?
-[Peter] So way back there?
Yeah.
If you don’t have local knowledge…
This is one of the 10 largest
wilderness areas in the lower 48.
So about 600,000 acres.
I’ve been hiking there for 65 years
and I’ve been on top of
almost every mountain
and seen almost all
the lakes several times
and there are places
that I probably won’t walk.
Humboldt Gulch would be a good example.
They will move, they might be
in a place for two years,
maybe only one year if they
decide there’s much traffic there.
-And it’s just because it’s hard to
really explain it unless you’ve been here.
It’s so remote.
It’s remote.
And there’s so much space between
the towns but this is the California
most people don’t think of
when they hear California.
They think of Yosemite and San Francisco
LA, Disneyland,
a few other things, that’s it.
-They think San Francisco’s
Northern California till you get up here.
-San Franciscans always talk of themselves
as being Northern California
and we talk to them
as being middle California.
Yeah.
[Peter] Totally unexpected, guys.
I was thinking the main town
in the poorest county of California
would be a little rougher,
a little more beat up
but this is quite charming,
quite beautiful,
and you never know what
you’re going to get into until you go.
That’s for sure.
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
-You’ve lived here for how long?
-38 years.
Okay, so what’s the story?
What do the outsiders not know?
We got a thing called Trinity County time.
We’re all on it.
[laughter]
Everything’s a little slower pace here
than the people from the city.
-Pretty tight community, would you say?
It’s getting back to that.
They just started a community
action committee type thing.
So that’s getting together
and they’re going to try to start
doing more events out here.
So then we’ve got music going
on down at the Moose now.
Yeah, music at the Moose.
-So they say statistically
it’s the poorest county in the state
but it doesn’t feel
or look that way though.
Driving through today.
You know, it’s definitely lower.
-It looks way nicer
than I thought it would.
-Like Weaverville’s a charming place.
-It’s a charming place.
-It used to be a lot more charming.
-Really?
Yeah.
-I thought it was clean and nice.
-Oh man.
When I lived there in ’97 is when
I came out to Lewiston from Weaverville.
And it was a lot more
pristine even back then.
-Yeah.
-Okay.
Are the young people
staying in town?
They all move.
Most of the majority’s moving.
-They go to the cities?
-Cities and stuff like that.
Some of them come back after a while.
Yeah.
We’re getting a lot more people
that are selling
their homes in the Bay Area.
-We got a lot of retirees up here.
-And then moving up here.
Because I mean for what
they’re selling down there. They can…
-Yeah.
-Yeah, it’s crazy. [laughs]
I worked for the County
Behavioral Health for 20 years
and then I retired.
-Oh, you shouldn’t retire. We need you.
-[laughter]
No, I don’t want to go there anymore.
-You’ve done enough of that?
I’m still a newcomer
and I’ve opened the shop in ’01.
-Yeah, we’re smi-natives.
-Yeah. [laughs]
-Did the true natives embrace you easily
or that was a long time to crack in?
Yeah, it took a while,
but, you know, then all those…
If you go over to Hayfork
it’s kind of different.
-If you fix their car though,
they probably like you.
-You know, it’s been good.
-Yeah.
Let’s put it that way.
-Cool. Where should I go in Lewiston?
So there’s not many places.
-There’s some smokehouse, right?
Smokehouse and talk to Jarret.
-Jarret? Okay.
-Yeah, he’s the owner.
If he’s not there, what is it, Sean?
-He’s like a manager or something.
-Okay.
-It’s a little smokehouse restaurant.
-All right.
Short red headed guy
with a beard, that’s Sean.
-Yeah.
-All right.
-Nice meeting you.
-See you guys, thank you.
[Peter] So we’re gonna go
down to the Smokehouse.
This is true small town feeling Americana.
[man] I’ll give my boss guy a jingle
’cause he heard you were coming around.
-He wanted to be here.
-Oh, he knew? Okay.
He just got back into town
from a grocery run.
-Did you grow up here?
-No, I didn’t.
I was a transplant up here,
I used to work…
I was a geographic information specialist.
-So a cartographer.
-Okay.
And I was working doing CEQA documents
for a commercial cannabis
consulting company
and then when the green boom crashed
I couldn’t find work and so
I started working here and I love it.
I’ve been working here for two years now.
-Oh, wow.
-Yeah.
One of the pot refugees.
-Are there a lot of you guys?
-Yeah.
-Pot refugees?
-Oh yeah, there’s a lot.
When the farms all kinda crashed,
they went out.
-Yep.
So here in Trinity, just in Lewiston
there used to be probably 30 farms
and then they had anywhere from
five to ten guys that worked for them.
So you had a lot of people
left the county after that
’cause when that went away…
So it was on a downward trend and now
it’s tourism that keeps the places going.
-So it was better–
-Hey.
-How you doing? Peter.
-Jarret.
-He’s the boss man.
-Oh cool, this is your business?
-Yes.
-Nice.
I’m just getting your take
on Trinity County.
I’m doing a video on Trinity,
cruising through.
I love Trinity County, super chill.
-Super chill?
-Yeah.
You guys feel removed,
left alone out here?
Absolutely, you’re in the county
40 miles from the city.
This is a sweet setup,
can I take a video of it?
-Yeah, man.
-Where are you taking this?
I do the archery tournament in Redding.
I do Heather’s Fair, Hayforks Fair,
Down River Kayak Races.
The Fourth of July, I do the VIP tent,
Fourth of July for the rodeo.
-Nice. How’s business?
Business is good.
Bar social media blew up two years ago
and we’ve just been slamming.
-Right on.
-Yeah.
Sasquatch, you believe in him?
Sure.
-That’s a legend up there in the sticks?
I’m from South Carolina
so we ain’t got many Sasquatches.
Okay, how is it here
compared to South Carolina?
So where I grew up in South Carolina
is almost identical to this.
-Seriously?
-Almost identical.
-The community?
-Mountain town.
Actually my community was
smaller than this in South Carolina.
We were farm but just the layout.
I was 40 miles from the city.
A lot of people who live here
never have gone anywhere
outside of California.
They’ve never been outside California,
never been to the city, never been to LA.
Like straight up, they’re country kids.
They ride horses, and motorcycles,
and rodeo, and sh*t.
-Right so that–
-[laughing] Straight up, yeah.
That would be a cultural collision
dropping these guys into Downtown LA?
They’d have no idea what to do, yeah.
-They don’t want to go and I get it.
-Yeah.
I got in the military,
and I got out, and went to San Diego.
-You know what I’m saying? I got out.
-Okay.
‘Cause I wanted to experience life.
-But I think from the outside
in South Carolina nobody knows
Trinity County or how remote it is.
No, they have no idea.
And so they don’t understand
like a good chunk of California,
maybe the majority is rural.
Oh yeah.
How many sheriff’s and cop cars
have you seen?
Saw one at town, Weaverville.
Yeah.
-CHP probably.
-How are they? They good?
Yeah, our cops are good.
I love our sheriff’s department.
This is… Lewis is remote.
So, there’s not a lot here.
In a little mountain town,
you better have three businesses.
-Why?
-Because there’s no money.
So, we have the market
and we have this.
My wife runs an early head start
daycare out of our house.
So…
-Is it hard to run businesses
here these days?
So, hunting season ended last Sunday
and we are now in wintertime money,
which is not much
but starting in March, we’ll pick back up.
I do a 12-week street run
of no breaks starting May
No breaks.
Every weekend
I’m somewhere doing something
I private chef for a month
at a fishing camp.
-So you just make her while it’s here
and then you got to bank up
and then that rides
you through the winter?
Absolutely, you have to.
I do catering Saturday
and just Christmas parties.
That’s what makes enough money
to pay the employees ’cause we stay open.
Tacos are my number one seller
for the year.
-Okay.
And then the mountain philly is right
behind that
and then the pulled pork,
and depending on the day of the week, man,
I might sell out of 25, 30 pounds
of pastrami just making reubans.
It’s great ’cause it’s
our own little twist.
We use a slaw sauce,
Carolina mustard barbecue sauce.
We smoke our own pastramis.
-I’m going to do it.
I’ll do that pulled pork.
-I got you, man.
Now the Mac is Sean’s baby.
-The Mac and cheese?
-Deep fried Mac and cheese balls.
That’s Sean’s baby.
-I got to do one of those.
-Are those ready? Okay.
-Yeah, they’re ready.
-Did you come up with that?
-Hell yeah.
Just sound advice, bro.
-It’s a meth a big thing out here?
-Tweakers.
-[woman] It’s everywhere.
-What about Fentanyl?
Oh yeah, the city’s overrun with it, yeah.
-The city, you mean Weaverville?
-Redding, yeah.
-Oh, Redding.
-Oh Redding’s horrible.
-It’s bad?
-Oh, bad.
Like scary bad.
Like, so bad that I came back here.
-No way, you lived up here,
went to Redding, then came back?
-Yeah, I grew up here.
-What was that like?
Oh, it was wonderful.
When I was young, I’m 34, right?
-Okay.
When I graduated high school,
I went to college in Redding,
and so just 17 and a half to 19
it wasn’t too bad.
-Yeah.
Went down to the Bay Area.
Did my career, made a lot of money
and stuff and then divorce.
-What did you do?
-I build Bridges.
-Oh, cool.
-Yeah.
But I went through a nasty divorce,
lost my house and everything.
And then I came back in 2019
is when I had my divorce
and I was just like what the heck, man?
I’m going that’s such a
short amount of time for this influx.
-Yeah, yeah.
-I’m like, oh.
-That’s, that’s too bad.
I was hoping I wouldn’t hear
that out here, but it’s everywhere.
I just met a woman
on the Lost Coast though
and she was in rehab her fourth time,
and she found a great rehab out there.
-And she’s been clean five years.
-Oh, that’s wonderful.
-Yeah, she’s helping people.
-That’s great.
Yeah, no, I’m with that.
Do you feel pride when you
go over the bridge you made?
-Oh heck, yeah.
-Is that cool?
Oh, dude, it’s awesome.
Like, especially because
a lot of people just
not mentally capable to handle that
amount of stress and stuff, you know?
Especially when you start running work,
and running crews,
and running jobs, and stuff like that.
It’s just not meant
for everyone, you know?
Have you ever driven under
a bridge that’s under construction?
-Like being built?
-Yeah.
And all the things
that are holding everything up.
-Yeah.
-That was my specialty.
Here we go, mac balls?
-Mac and cheese balls, yeah.
Pulled pork with pickles.
-I need a third hand.
-Right. [chuckles]
-Right on, thank you.
-Yeah, man.
All right. This is looking good.
Smelling good.
These balls are just, uh… grab a bite.
Mmm.
Messy, but wow, that’s good.
Woo.
Mmm.
That’s an interesting combo.
-This is so awesome. The Mac ball.
-Thanks, bro. Yeah.
I’ve never had that.
-[chuckles] Yeah.
That’s a barbecue thing.
The industry’s come up
with a couple years ago.
-Yeah?
-Yeah, man.
-I’ll never be the same… ever.
-Ever.
Pulled pork sandwich.
Mmm.
Nice smoke to it. Very tender.
Soft bun. You gotta have a soft bun.
Mmm.
So good.
And they got a cool market
right next to it
and you said a tattoo shop?
Yeah, down by the hotel.
-Oh, there’s a tattoo shop, okay.
Yeah, he did all this work.
-Oh, nice.
All his stuff.
-Guys, take care. All the best.
-Yeah, brother.
All right, we have an ambitious goal
to go way north in the county.
before the sun goes down
but since it’s going down
in about two minutes here
over that mountain
we might be in the shadows
but we’re going to try to get up there.
To Trinity Center.
Yeah, so this is just that
part of the country where
you got your little general store,
maybe your restaurant.
All the locals come in, congregate there,
live out in the countryside,
and just a few of these little hubs,
really, in the whole county.
These are old the abandoned homes.
You can see the forest
just taking the home over.
Brush growing up over it.
Wow, look at these ones
right in the ravine here.
Someone must be living down there,
the porch light’s still on.
Old schoolhouse up there.
Let’s go check it out.
Wow, it’s so beautiful.
It’s a schoolhouse library.
Then up on the hill here,
we have the congregational church.
Such beautiful architecture.
Probably built around the time
the old prospectors came out,
built up these communities.
Oh, wow, look at this.
The nature is everywhere.
Look at these guys.
Beautiful animals.
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]
In the distance you can see
some of the peaks of the Trinity Alps.
Unfortunately we won’t
be getting deep into those.
But that is what’s around here outside
of these forests, these river valleys.
The majority of the day
has been like this.
Open road, forests,
some deer on the side of the road.
A stop sign.
A house out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s only 16,000 people
over a ton of land
and that’s the draw to Trinity County.
There’s nobody out there.
[music continues]
[Peter] So the sign across the street,
state of Jefferson,
is that still a thing?
So what they were trying to do is make
Northern California
its own separate state.
So that we could have our own
separate laws for gun control, et cetera,
because they were trying to take away
all of our guns and everything
here a few years back.
So State of Jefferson was a movement
where we were trying to make
Northern California,
because we’re so rural,
not like San Diego and San Francisco,
to be its own complete separate state.
Add an extra state to the United States.
-That’s a hard thing to do, huh?
It didn’t go through
but everybody still supports it.
All the craziness that goes
on in the big cities, you know?
-Okay, so no crime up here really?
No, not really and if
some kind of crime goes on
everybody usually knows
exactly who it is doing it.
So I love that small town feel
where, you know,
we’re all basically like a
family instead of a town.
-Have you lived anywhere else
or you’ve always been here?
Fifth generation, my great-grandparents
actually made Trinity Center
when the lake inundated
the old Trinity Center.
-Oh, that’s where I want to go
to finish up the video.
-When did they dam it?
-’58.
-Okay, and where does that water go to?
It goes down through
three pump houses to create power,
ultimately into Shasta Lake,
and then continues on down south.
-How do you guys feel about that?
Um, I know that they really didn’t want
it to happen before the lake was put in.
Now we really rely on the lake
because it brings in the tourists,
which keeps our economy going.
-Okay, okay, ‘casuse that’s the
main economy up here, tourism?
Yes, definitely.
When they told everyone
they were going to put the lake in,
everybody was told they had to either
sell their home to the government
or up and leave.
And so everything that Trinity Center
is on was my family’s land.
And they actually brought up
the Iowa Love Hall
and the store and things like that.
-Oh, they brought the buildings up
from the Lake Shore?
Yeah, from down on where the lake is now.
Everybody who wanted
to move their home, our family went ahead
and helped them
and brought their homes up here
and anyone who wanted
to just build a new home
they helped them build their new homes.
They put in the streets, the roads.
There’s actually I think it’s
the K-I-X-E-T-B, my uncle Lynn.
It was his parents who did it and he
helped build the roads and power in.
And he did an interview
about the old Trinity Center
becoming the new Trinity Center.
-Cool, all your family still around?
-Yeah.
Yeah, my grandma is in her 90s and
she is still running the water company.
We are deeply rooted here.
Okay, so tourists,
this is the place to go to town?
-Do you have a bar?
-A little bit of everything.
The old one that’s just down the road,
that used to be the bar
down at the old Trinity Center.
Owners passed away.
It’s up for sale,
has been for a long, long time.
There used to be a bar
down by the airport.
Same story.
Owners passed away.
Nobody’s bought it and brought it back up.
-So do most of the young people
like you move out of town?
Yeah, usually when the kids
around here get old enough
they leave for a while
but they always come back.
-They do?
-Yeah, pretty much.
Here’s the lake we just talked about.
There’s also a tiny airstrip over there.
And that’s the end of the road guys.
I definitely underestimated
the size of this county.
It’s just country, nature,
solitude, and beauty.
And it goes to show you
you can never put a simple label
on something such as California.
This is California,
Los Angeles is California,
Death Valley is California,
all different realities,
much different feels,
and completely
unique and interesting places.
Thanks for coming along
on that journey, guys.
Until the next one.
[mellow acoustic guitar plays]