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Birds of the Klamath Mountains

March 23, 2023 by Bella Fratkin 1 Comment

Bella Fratkin
GUEST POST

Bella Fratkin

Bella’s second post! Read her first HERE. She is an amazing work-study student from Arcata High School that helps us out with everything from packaging books to post office runs to watching our kids… to using her exceptional writing skills!


White-Headed Woodpecker- Leuconotopicus Albolarvatus    By Dan Barton
White-Headed Woodpecker- Leuconotopicus Albolarvatus By Dan Barton

The Klamath Mountains are home to vast populations of bird species. This is due to diverse habitats including riparian corridors, coniferous forests, oak woodlands, chaparral, meadows, and rocky cliffs. Over 350 bird species call the Klamath Mountains home for some portion of their life. Many of the bird species found in the Klamath Mountains are also found in other locations across the western United States but it is rare to find as many species residing in such close proximity to each other. 

The unique climate of the Klamath Mountains provides a rare opportunity for birds of different habitat types to cross paths. This is observed with Steller’s jays (Cyanocitta stelleria ontalis), a subspecies that prefers a humid coastal forest habitat, and the white-headed woodpecker (Leuconotopicus albolarvatus), a species that requires higher elevation and drier pine forests. They are both found in the Klamath Mountains. 

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Webcast: The Natural History of the Klamath Mountains

February 15, 2023 by Backcountry Press 2 Comments

Take a journey through the biotic and abiotic wonders that define the Klamath Mountains and one of the most unique mountain ranges in North America.

Ecologist and author Michael Kauffmann takes us on across the range based on his new book about the range that spans northwest California and southwest Oregon. We explore a variety of features that make the Klamath Mountains unique including climate, geology, water, fire, plants, and animals — all of which, when taken together, define one of the most biodiverse temperate mountain ranges on Earth.

Michael Kauffmann is a kindergarten through college educator in Humboldt County where he lives with his wife and two boys. He has also served as an ecologist mapping rare conifers across California and is the author of Conifer County and Conifers of the Pacific Slope and co-author of Field Guide to Manzanitas, California Desert Plants, and The Klamath Mountains: A Natural History.

Recorded January 28th, 2023

Greed and Destruction: Klamath Mountains Mining History

February 10, 2023 by Bella Fratkin 7 Comments

Bella Fratkin
GUEST POST

Bella Fratkin

Is our first employee here at Backcountry Press. She is an amazing work-study student from Arcata High School that helps us out with everything from packaging books to post office runs to watching our kids… to using her exceptional writing skills!


Hydraulic Mines at Trinity River

The Klamath Mountains are second to the Sierra Nevada in gold abundance in California. This abundance was, unfortunately, met by the festering greed of gold miners who lacked respect for the land and the First Peoples who resided there at the time of first contact. While there were laws for mining, the miners often disregarded them. These miners looked at these beautiful mountains, with their unique features and vast landscape, and simply saw monetary value.

It’s important to recognize that the wealth that came from the gold mines of the Klamath Mountain region came at the expense of the health of the land and the well-being of the First Peoples. Though the greed of the miners was, and still is, harmful to Indigenous Tribes, they have persisted and still continue their cultural practices in the Klamath Mountains today. Klamath Mountains mining history is a complicated story.

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Cultivating Place

January 28, 2023 by Backcountry Press Leave a Comment

Cultivating Place

A Podcast Interview with Jennifer Jewell

This week Jennifer Jewell, with the Cultivating Place Podcast, interviewed Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood. Michael and Justin have spent the better part of the last decade curating and editing a cohort of 32 additional expert contributors to a new, and really the first, comprehensive natural history of the Klamath Mountains, one of the most biodiverse temperate mountain ranges on Earth. This distinct North American region, protected by its rough topography for millennia is inclusive of the traditional homelands of more than 14 Native American Tribes, close to 10 separate mountain ranges, and more than 3000 plant taxa, as just a few measures of biodiversity.

The evolving story and natural history of this place has lessons for us all in to best care for, live with, and know our own places.

Listen in!

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Headline Humboldt

January 7, 2023 by Backcountry Press Leave a Comment

The Klamath Mountains: A Natural History

Season 3 Episode 14 | 28m 29s

This week on Headline Humboldt, the North Coast is pummeled by a massive storm after another strong aftershock throws a wrench in earthquake recovery efforts. Also, author Michael Kauffmann is in the studio to discuss his new natural history book of the Klamath Mountains, an exhaustively researched and beautifully written book published by Back Country Press.

Aired: 01/06/23

Rating: NR

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SF Chronicle: Best Books of 2022

December 9, 2022 by Backcountry Press 6 Comments

We are proud to say that the San Francisco Chronicle has selected The Klamath Mountains: A Natural History as one of the best nonfiction books of 2022!

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THE KLAMATH MOUNTAINS: A NATURAL HISTORY

August 31, 2022 by Backcountry Press Leave a Comment

ISBN: 978-1-941624-09-8

Filled with mystery conjured by unparalleled biodiversity, the Klamath Mountains tell numerous stories of evolution and resilience shaped over long periods of time. Geology is the defining character of this range, with numerous smaller mountain ranges forming a jigsaw puzzle of big-shouldered river canyons and sharp ridgelines. Within the Klamath Knot, the geology also shapes the climate with wet coastal rainforests in the west and dry semi-deserts in the east.  

Michael Kauffmann and Justin Garwood co-edited a new work titled The Klamath Mountains: A Natural History with the help of 32 other authors. Experts in all aspects of the region’s natural history came together and are the first to tell the entire story.

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The Vivid View of Ken Jarvela

September 17, 2021 by Backcountry Press 1 Comment

Once you get on a roll with a painting, its like you have free license to be part of the mountains. It’s an odd feeling.

Ken Jarvela
Ken Jarvela

Ken Jarvela is one of our favorite local artists. His work captures the wildest plants, rocks, sky and these are the subjects we love.

He grew up in Bayside, California alongside Humboldt Bay and, today, is one of the region’s premier landscape painters. His ability to capture light with vivid brushstrokes using subtle color palettes is, in our opinion, unparalleled. He loves the challenges of tough subjects including majestic redwoods, mountains with low winter sun, and wild rivers weaving through boulder fields.

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Perfect Pairings For Klamath Natural History

January 5, 2021 by Backcountry Press 4 Comments

Since we could certainly all use a bit more fun in our lives, it was recommended to us that each session in the Klamath Mountains Natural History winter webinar series feature its own pairing — food and/or bev.

Brilliant. And why not.

So what pairs well with endemic salamanders, limestone caverns, or the last glacier in the Klamath Mountains?

I don’t know either, and that’s why I asked our presenters for their expert recommendations.

Part 1: Intro to the Klamath Mountains + The Last Glacier

The Glaciertini (Photo credit: Mike van Hattem)

I present to you the Glaciertini: a fine drink to accompany the first session in this 10-part series where Justin Garwood tells the story of the Klamath Mountains’ Last “tini” Glacier. It also happens to be the signature cocktail of his research team. Per his and colleague Mike van Hattem’s instructions:

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Where are the Klamath Mountains?

December 5, 2020 by Backcountry Press 1 Comment

I thought it was just the Klamath River?

or…

Are they in Klamath Falls?

Where are the Klamath Mountains
Klamath Mountain Geomorphic Province

These are common questions we hear and we understand the confusion. The name “Klamath Mountains” may not be part of your everyday speak, but if you love all those spectacular mountains and rivers between Ashland and Crescent City, Redding and Eureka, Mount Shasta and Brookings, then it turns out you LOVE the The Klamath Mountains.

The Klamath Mountains are one of the Earth’s most important temperate mountain ranges. These mountains are a hotspot for biodiversity due to the complex interactions, across millions of years, of biotic and abiotic factors. The area has a central location and continuity with other mountain ranges along the Pacific Slope of western North America. Across this landscape, a mosaic of habitats mix at a crossroads of five biotic regions including the Cascades, Coast Ranges, Great Basin, Central Valley, and Sierra Nevada. Many major rivers of the region also connect the ranges aquatic ecosystems to the productive Pacific Ocean.

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Humboldt’s flying squirrel

October 22, 2020 by Backcountry Press 2 Comments

Glaucomys oregonensis

Until recently, mammalogists classified two species of flying squirrels in North America. But, in 2017, a third was added with the formal description of the Humboldt’s flying squirrel (Glaucomys oregonensis). Though slightly smaller and darker, this cryptic species was once considered to be part of the northern flying squirrel (G. sabrinus) group but genetic studies and an in depth look at the penis bone changed that. Northern flying squirrels inhabit the boreal coniferous forests of the northeastern U.S., Canada, and Alaska as well as relictual habitat in the higher elevations of the Appalachian and Rocky mountains. The Humboldt’s flying squirrel is a specialist of the Pacific Slope’s coastal forests from southern California’s sky islands, north through the Sierra Nevada, Klamath Mountains, Coast Ranges, and Cascades in conifer and mixed-conifer forests.

Range of the North American flying squirrel species from National Geographic.
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Trivia Challenge: Wildflowers of the Klamath Mountains

https://backcountrypress.com/podcast-player/21109/trivia-challenge-wildflowers-of-the-klamath-mountains.mp3

Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 19:11 | Recorded on July 8, 2022

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Recent Posts

  • Birds of the Klamath Mountains March 23, 2023
  • Webcast: The Natural History of the Klamath Mountains February 15, 2023
  • Greed and Destruction: Klamath Mountains Mining History February 10, 2023
  • Cultivating Place January 28, 2023
  • Headline Humboldt January 7, 2023

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