Friday, February 20, 2009

Environmental History Digital Collection

Snooping around the Jean and Charles Shultz Library (aka the Snoopy Library) website at SSU, I discovered the Environmental History Digital Archive. They've digitized rather an eclectic mix of historical material on Sonoma County: old maps, photos, plans, articles, letters, records pertaining to various contentious issues on the environment. Some unique items.

There's the whole history of the "Hole in the Head," the gaping foundation for a nuclear power plant that was to be built on Bodega Headlands. The plant was not only planned for one of the most beautiful whale-watching bluffs on our gorgeous ocean coast, but was also mere yards from the San Andreas fault. Like that made sense. But it was the 1960's, when suits felt they could do what they wanted and hippies and radical-nut protesters had other ideas and values. The plant was never built, but the shaft dug for the nuclear reactor is still there, a physical and metaphorical hole in the head.

This digital archive also contains two of my Nature's Way pieces, one on owls and ravens (#37), another on Western pond turtles (#51). They had asked permission a few months ago, but I'd neglected to look for them earlier. It's nice to be included.


SSU Historical Archive

No comments:

Post a Comment

Noise makers!