There have been many attempts at forming a new state comprised of northern California and southern Oregon, but none has gained so much attention and retained it as the secession movement of 1941.
The abundant supply of minerals and timber in this region was largely inaccessible due to the lack of sufficient roads and bridges into the rugged mountain border country. The local pioneering people grew weary of unfulfilled promises from Salem and Sacramento to help fund sufficient highway projects in the region while building campgrounds in the cities where there were more votes.
Representatives from the mountain border counties involved met in Yreka, CA on November 17, 1941 to form an alliance to obtain federal aid for the construction and repair of bridges and roads. The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $100 to research the possibility of seceding from the state of California and joining the other counties to form a new 49th state.
Newsreels showcasing their secessionist plight were to air nationally the week of December 8, but tragically on December 7th Pearl Harbor was bombed and the State of Jefferson rebellion of 1941 came to an end. The people of the region went to work for the war effort and good roads were eventually built into the backcountry to access strategic minerals and timber. These same roads have helped countless numbers of rural families make a living from the land that continues to produce abundant, quality natural resources.
The State of Jefferson 'state of mind' remains in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.
So i guess it would make more sense to call it vagabond opera 2008: Jefferson State...anyhoo, I'm going to try and write about some of it in the next few days, probably a different post for each day. I spent most of yesterday and today processing all my photos and videos taken, building an easily digestable album. i think the total count for stills was 347 and 5 or 6 videos. i've been experimenting with Apple's iDVD and put together a DVD slideshow with video clips and some basic menus.
A funny thing is that in terms of averages, they're all higher than last year's trip. i covered a little over half the miles in about a third of the time. even though my point-to-point distances were often much less, i did so much exploring and re-tracing my own path that my daily totals were very high...the mileage totals shown on the GoogleMaps samples are just A-to-B and dont include all the dicking around i was doing in the bush ... so to speak.
Everything went so well this time, i really didnt have any signifigant problems, or even minor ones. I had one very close encounter with a speeding logging truck, one freak weather occurrence, and only got lost in the woods once. No mechanicals or flats, no crashes, no theft or violence, no bad weather, no equipment failures, no $ problems ... i even slept a consistent 7 hours at night and seemed to be immune to hangovers. I did lose my knife, that sucked, but what i replaced it with is so much cooler, i dont even miss it. Oh yeah, I did get taunted by some crackhead from behind a fence as i walked past his trailerpark in Alturas, CA. I cant remember the last time i was called "dickweed" by someone who took it seriously as an insult. poor bastard.
