OLLI Class

OLLI Class Wednesday, July 30 in Trinidad on the Spanish Landing

Find out more about the Spanish landing and exploration between June 9 and 19, 1775, 250 years ago, the first contact between Europeans and the Yurok people of Tsurai Village, on Wednesday, July 30.  Your columnist, director of Trinidad Museum with an MA in history, will lead a Cal Poly OLLI class from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  Register for Class #31236 athumboldt.edu/olli/trinidad.  $45 per person (tuition fee is shared between OLLI and Trinidad Museum).

Bruno de Hezeta, captain of the Santiagoand Juan Francisco de la Bodega, captain of the Sonora, wrote journals describing the welcoming Yurok people, the harbor, the flora and fauna, the topography, the “crystal clear springs,” and the possibilities for settlement in “this happy paradise”  (Bodega).  With no charts or maps of any accuracy to guide them to the rocky harbor, the Spanish sea captains and their pilots Francisco Antonio Mourelle and Juan Perez, produced the first maps of Trinidad.  After they left Trinidad to sail north (their instructions from Viceroy Antonio Maria de Bucareli y Ursua of New Spain were to reach at least 60 degrees latitude), the Spanish Navy charted more of the unexplored northern coast.

The Spanish voyage of exploration and discovery started from San Blas (Mexico) in March 1775.  Three tumultuous months passed before the first landing in Trinidad.  Months of danger, discovery and the inevitable scourge of scurvy followed as the frigate and the schooner sailed “to the limits” of the unknown in the Pacific Northwest.

Email olli@humboldt.edu or call OLLI at (707) 826-5880 for more information.