Have you heard the story of Moore’s Riverboat? A restaurant located on Brannan Island, Moore’s was described by the Sacramento News & Review as a “stalwart of Delta culture, one of those quirky enclaves that make people fall in love with a sense of being lost in California’s meandering river world.”

In July 2022, this “piece of floating history” went up in flames. For a fascinating read on the story of the blaze (“the restaurant’s cameras did indeed capture a shadowy figure pouring an ignitable liquid on the boat’s dock”) check out the Sacramento News & Review’s article, “The night they burned old Moore’s boat down.”

Hankering to fish, but don’t know how?

Parks staff at Brannan Island State Recreation Area are ready to teach you! Join them on Saturday, February 28 at 9am for their “Learn to Fish” program at the fishing pier.

The program includes an “engaging talk with interactive demonstrations” to get the group comfortable with fishing tackle. Attendees will learn about when and where they can fish in the California Delta and will also gain an understanding about how to fish sustainably and responsibly.

The group will then “hit the water for some free fishing time” with parks staff coaching them through the process.

Participation in the program is free, but admission to Brannan Island SRA is $10 per vehicle. (Hint: If you check out a California State Parks pass from your local library, you’ll get free admission to the park).

Loaner equipment, including fishing rods, is available to attendees on a first-come first-served basis. All participants ages 16 and older must have a valid fishing license from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to participate. You can purchase a fishing license online at https://wildlife.ca.gov/Licensing/Online-Sales.

Contact Logan.Currin@parks.ca.gov with any questions.

Stuart Walthall, chairman of the Locke Foundation, recently shared an informative and entertaining article about Erle Stanley Gardner and his connection to the California Delta.

Gardner was, famously, the author of the Perry Mason books. Within Gardner’s lifetime, these books became national best sellers and were adapted into radio, film, and a very successful television series.

However, according to Stuart Walthall, Gardner was also a “working rancher, an amateur geologist, photographer, archaeologist, engineer, astronomer and forensic criminologist.”

Later in life, says Walthall, “Gardner loved exploring the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.” In the 1960s, he wrote three travel books about the summers he spent in the Delta: The World of Water, Gypsy Days on the Delta, and Drifting Down Delta. The books read more like journals, notes Walthall, “written in a conversational style, and filled with Gardner’s photographs.”

To learn more about Gardner’s houseboats, his many friends in the Delta and his impact on popular culture, read Stuart Walthall’s article here.

Ever wondered how Hercules got its name? The City of Hercules has your answer.

Hercules (in the Refugio Valley) was born as a company town for the California Powder Works, which was established in the area in 1881. The city’s name originated from "Hercules powder," a powerful dynamite patented (and produced) by the Powder Works.  

Other fun facts, provided by the Hercules Historical Society:

- Before becoming the site of the California Powder Works, the Refugio Valley was a province of Pinole, "a 19th century agricultural hinterland of San Francisco.”

- The town of Pinole is among the earliest European-settled sites in California. With the acquisition of a Spanish land grant in 1823, the town began as the Martinez family ranch, “engaging in the California commerce of the time: trading cattle, hides, tallow and produce for finished goods in sail-powered oceanic trade.”

- The California Powder Works in Hercules was one of the largest explosives factories in the world. The explosive products produced there “were fundamental to the rise of large-scale industrial production that lifted living standards and transformed societies.”

East Bay Regional Parks is warning outdoor lovers that, due to this year’s early rainy season, wild mushrooms are “popping up in great numbers” throughout local parks.

While mushrooms are an ecologically important part of the parklands and can look beautiful, some of them contain dangerous toxins.

The death cap (Amanita phalloides) (pictured above) and western destroying angel (Amanita ocreata) are two of the world’s most toxic mushrooms, and both can be found in regional parks during the rainy season. Both of these mushrooms can be lethal to humans and pets if consumed.

Collecting mushrooms in regional parks is not allowed. 

A floating cannery, in what is now West Sacramento, mined the Delta’s silvery bounty.

Stroll along the River Walk in West Sacramento, and you will notice a plaque commemorating California Registered Historical Landmark number 1040, north of the Tower Bridge.

The plaque marks the original site of the Hapgood-Hume Company’s salmon cannery, the first salmon cannery established on the West Coast.

Built on a barge moored to the bank in 1864, the cannery processed salmon caught on the river by cooking with a boiler, rather than salt packing, which was more common at the time.

At the time, salmon were so plentiful that it is recorded that cannery fish were caught mostly with gill nets and – believe it or not – spears.

By 1866 – less than three years later – the Humes moved their operation to the Columbia River in Oregon, as the salmon runs in the Sacramento River were already beginning to decline.

The decimation of the river fishery was swift: in 1881 there were 20 canneries in Northern California, six in 1885, and by the turn of the century, California ranked last in West Coast canned salmon production with only three canneries in operation - two on the Sacramento River and one on the Klamath. The state where salmon canning began saw its last cannery close in 1919.

Once the easy pickings in the river were depleted, commercial salmon fishermen concentrated their efforts on fish in the ocean heading home to spawn – a practice that continues today. Only a few West Coast canneries remain, located in Oregon, Washington and Alaska.