00:00:01.324 --> 00:00:03.904
[upbeat music]

00:00:18.455 --> 00:00:19.520
- People are drawn to this community

00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:21.389
because they realize that
this is actually a place

00:00:21.389 --> 00:00:23.969
where you can change the world.

00:00:26.464 --> 00:00:28.102
- "America, America,

00:00:28.102 --> 00:00:30.519
may God thy gold refine."

00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:32.717
These lyrics from "America the Beautiful"

00:00:32.717 --> 00:00:35.847
remind us that wealth is
not measured in money alone.

00:00:36.853 --> 00:00:40.440
And as our environmental
challenges become more apparent,

00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:43.380
some Americans are redefining prosperity.

00:00:46.324 --> 00:00:50.220
This is the story of a town
torn by clashing values

00:00:50.220 --> 00:00:52.817
but united by a common love,

00:00:52.817 --> 00:00:55.385
of how the back-to-the-land
movement changed ideas

00:00:55.385 --> 00:00:58.981
about food, education,
and respect for nature,

00:00:58.981 --> 00:01:01.708
and of how the fight to
save a beautiful river

00:01:01.708 --> 00:01:03.949
turned conflict into understanding.

00:01:04.965 --> 00:01:08.052
It's the story of a town whose successes

00:01:08.052 --> 00:01:10.859
might be duplicated in every town.

00:01:10.859 --> 00:01:14.535
- This is a boiling pot of creativity

00:01:14.535 --> 00:01:16.154
and I think that you can trace that back

00:01:16.154 --> 00:01:19.001
to those people who
came up here in the '60s

00:01:19.001 --> 00:01:20.894
and discovered this place.

00:01:20.894 --> 00:01:23.474
[upbeat music]

00:01:29.650 --> 00:01:31.818
- Nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills

00:01:31.818 --> 00:01:34.445
halfway between Sacramento and Reno,

00:01:34.445 --> 00:01:37.535
Nevada City, California
looks tiny from above.

00:01:40.429 --> 00:01:42.447
- There's one stoplight in town.

00:01:42.447 --> 00:01:44.236
When I pull up to that stoplight,

00:01:44.236 --> 00:01:45.914
if there's two cars in front of me

00:01:45.914 --> 00:01:48.332
I consider it a traffic jam.

00:01:48.332 --> 00:01:50.949
- But this little town has a big history

00:01:50.949 --> 00:01:53.177
driven by waves of settlers

00:01:53.177 --> 00:01:56.194
with remarkably different
visions of wealth.

00:01:56.194 --> 00:01:59.570
Many came for heavy
loads of precious metal.

00:01:59.570 --> 00:02:02.078
Others, for a less encumbered life.

00:02:02.078 --> 00:02:04.096
♪ And the coal company came ♪

00:02:04.096 --> 00:02:06.766
♪ With the world's largest shovel ♪

00:02:06.766 --> 00:02:10.776
♪ Tortured the timber,
stripped all the land ♪

00:02:10.776 --> 00:02:13.037
- The song is about coal,

00:02:13.037 --> 00:02:15.358
but it could have been written about gold.

00:02:17.014 --> 00:02:21.438
♪ Wrote it all down as
the progress of man ♪

00:02:21.438 --> 00:02:24.975
To walk through Nevada City,
as flocks of tourists do,

00:02:24.975 --> 00:02:27.283
is to step back into a history filled

00:02:27.283 --> 00:02:29.927
with both wealth and pain.

00:02:29.927 --> 00:02:33.586
♪ In a cavern in a canyon ♪

00:02:33.586 --> 00:02:37.160
♪ Excavating for a mine ♪

00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:40.972
♪ Dwelt a miner forty-niner ♪

00:02:40.972 --> 00:02:44.345
♪ And his daughter Clementine ♪

00:02:44.345 --> 00:02:47.053
- Gold was discovered
just to the south of here

00:02:47.053 --> 00:02:52.048
at Sutter's Mill in
Coloma in January of 1848.

00:02:52.062 --> 00:02:55.334
♪ You are lost and gone forever ♪

00:02:55.334 --> 00:02:57.482
- You could literally
pick it up in the creeks.

00:02:57.482 --> 00:02:59.840
And pretty soon you have the President

00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:01.988
in his State of the Union Address

00:03:01.988 --> 00:03:05.105
holding up a jar full
of gold from California

00:03:05.105 --> 00:03:08.670
and saying, "The rumor is
true, there's gold there."

00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:10.140
[upbeat instrumental music]

00:03:10.140 --> 00:03:14.415
And in 1849, everybody
comes from everywhere

00:03:14.415 --> 00:03:15.874
to mine gold.

00:03:15.874 --> 00:03:19.201
- By the thousands, they
arrive in San Francisco

00:03:19.201 --> 00:03:21.768
and strike out for the foothills.

00:03:21.768 --> 00:03:25.085
Gold-seekers find nuggets in Deer Creek,

00:03:25.085 --> 00:03:27.312
where Nevada City stands now

00:03:27.312 --> 00:03:30.429
but where a native village stood then.

00:03:30.429 --> 00:03:33.117
- These thousands of
people come charging in

00:03:33.117 --> 00:03:35.414
and literally destroy the place.

00:03:35.414 --> 00:03:40.409
The effect on the Nisenan
people was catastrophic.

00:03:40.663 --> 00:03:43.386
There are almost no cases
in the United States

00:03:43.386 --> 00:03:46.683
of an Indian people who
were affected that fast

00:03:46.683 --> 00:03:47.795
and that brutally.

00:03:48.661 --> 00:03:50.170
- The Nisenan Tribe lived

00:03:50.170 --> 00:03:52.597
throughout the Gold Rush region.

00:03:52.597 --> 00:03:54.635
- We've been here for thousands of years,

00:03:54.635 --> 00:03:56.293
countless generations.

00:03:56.293 --> 00:03:59.081
We had a very deep
connection with the animals,

00:03:59.081 --> 00:04:01.778
the water, the air,
and of course the rocks

00:04:01.778 --> 00:04:04.485
and everything from this place.

00:04:04.485 --> 00:04:06.553
- Shelly Covert, a descendant

00:04:06.553 --> 00:04:09.051
of Nevada City's first inhabitants,

00:04:09.051 --> 00:04:11.159
is the keeper of their memory.

00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:14.275
- The Nisenan people used the environment

00:04:14.275 --> 00:04:16.207
for every aspect of life.

00:04:18.501 --> 00:04:21.318
The Gold Rush, for our people,

00:04:21.318 --> 00:04:23.516
was the time of great change,

00:04:23.516 --> 00:04:27.612
and within the span of 10 years

00:04:27.612 --> 00:04:29.420
it was completely wiped out.

00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:31.771
That whole entire society
was completely gone.

00:04:33.856 --> 00:04:36.533
One day, the river just
didn't come down anymore

00:04:36.533 --> 00:04:39.283
because somebody had a sluice
that they were running.

00:04:40.150 --> 00:04:42.747
The basket materials and
the gathering grounds

00:04:42.747 --> 00:04:45.334
that belonged to the women of
certain families were gone.

00:04:45.334 --> 00:04:48.561
They were just completely
gone almost overnight,

00:04:48.561 --> 00:04:51.318
but the people who survived adapted.

00:04:51.318 --> 00:04:54.096
And they adapted in whatever
ways that they could

00:04:54.096 --> 00:04:57.352
to bring economic viability back

00:04:57.352 --> 00:04:58.801
into their tribal families

00:04:58.801 --> 00:05:00.352
in whatever means they could.

00:05:01.558 --> 00:05:03.716
- Soon after the Gold Rush began,

00:05:03.716 --> 00:05:06.366
little remained to be
gleaned from the creeks.

00:05:09.051 --> 00:05:10.519
- Hydraulic mining started

00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:12.138
right here in Nevada City.

00:05:12.138 --> 00:05:15.724
And they began blasting away
at these hillside sediments

00:05:15.724 --> 00:05:19.503
and washing them into flumes
which they coated with mercury.

00:05:22.397 --> 00:05:25.224
- Cannons sent powerful bursts of water

00:05:25.224 --> 00:05:28.774
over long distances,
tearing down the mountains.

00:05:32.038 --> 00:05:35.544
This is wet country--nearly
60 inches of liquid

00:05:35.544 --> 00:05:39.151
falls as rain or snow
in the winter months.

00:05:39.151 --> 00:05:42.028
Entire towns were buried when those rains

00:05:42.028 --> 00:05:43.886
carried the gravel downstream.

00:05:43.886 --> 00:05:46.963
- It deposited a mixture of mud and gravel

00:05:46.963 --> 00:05:51.099
and boulders and mercury all
over the farmers' fields,

00:05:51.099 --> 00:05:52.550
leaving them unusable.

00:05:52.550 --> 00:05:55.380
[plaintive music]

00:05:56.483 --> 00:05:58.311
- These vast gravel bars

00:05:58.311 --> 00:06:00.709
in the Yuba gold fields near Marysville

00:06:00.709 --> 00:06:03.806
are a stark reminder of the damage done.

00:06:03.806 --> 00:06:06.034
The deep gravel was washed down here

00:06:06.034 --> 00:06:08.551
from mountains many miles upriver.

00:06:08.551 --> 00:06:12.078
But the victims fought
back in court, and in 1884

00:06:12.078 --> 00:06:15.804
Federal Judge Alonzo Sawyer
ruled in their favor,

00:06:15.804 --> 00:06:18.644
effectively stopping
most hydraulic mining.

00:06:19.960 --> 00:06:23.000
But nature has not yet erased the scars.

00:06:23.896 --> 00:06:27.073
- And you have these
washed-out kind of hoodoos

00:06:27.073 --> 00:06:32.060
and great pits full of
strange-looking water to this day.

00:06:34.006 --> 00:06:35.684
- Yet the big payload didn't come

00:06:35.684 --> 00:06:38.411
from the creeks or the ancient gravels.

00:06:38.411 --> 00:06:40.309
The Empire Mine in Grass Valley,

00:06:40.309 --> 00:06:42.557
Nevada City's next-door neighbor,

00:06:42.557 --> 00:06:45.864
was one of the last hard
rock mines to close.

00:06:45.864 --> 00:06:47.492
In less than a hundred years,

00:06:47.492 --> 00:06:49.510
this deep mine and others like it

00:06:49.510 --> 00:06:52.657
produced billions of
dollars worth of gold.

00:06:52.657 --> 00:06:56.293
- Mines here by that time
were highly capitalized

00:06:56.293 --> 00:06:59.270
underground mines, largely,
with connections to

00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:03.106
major money in San Francisco and New York.

00:07:03.106 --> 00:07:04.915
There are tunnels all over,

00:07:04.915 --> 00:07:07.442
underneath this town and
the neighboring town--

00:07:07.442 --> 00:07:08.911
all around us.

00:07:08.911 --> 00:07:11.658
- Hard rock mines and town buildings

00:07:11.658 --> 00:07:13.959
demanded a constant diet of wood.

00:07:16.883 --> 00:07:17.802
- There was a gold rush,

00:07:17.802 --> 00:07:19.090
there was a water rush,

00:07:19.090 --> 00:07:20.509
there was a timber rush.

00:07:20.509 --> 00:07:23.596
By the 1870s, old
renderings of Nevada City

00:07:23.596 --> 00:07:26.515
show this land completely clear-cut.

00:07:27.205 --> 00:07:30.285
[mellow accordion music]

00:07:40.539 --> 00:07:43.096
- Yet there was also a silver lining.

00:07:43.096 --> 00:07:45.234
Miners needed supplies.

00:07:45.234 --> 00:07:48.854
Their dollars fed culture and
refinement, as well as greed.

00:07:49.810 --> 00:07:53.716
The National Hotel first
opened its doors in 1865.

00:07:53.716 --> 00:07:55.474
So did the Nevada Theater.

00:07:55.474 --> 00:07:56.916
Both are still open today.

00:07:57.982 --> 00:08:00.619
Richest of the Gold
Rush towns, Nevada City

00:08:00.619 --> 00:08:03.379
was called "The Queen
of the Northern Mines."

00:08:04.905 --> 00:08:08.101
United States Senator
Aaron Sargent lived here.

00:08:08.101 --> 00:08:10.519
While in Congress, he
wrote the Transcontinental

00:08:10.519 --> 00:08:15.194
Railroad Act, the 1872 Mining
Act, and six years later

00:08:15.194 --> 00:08:17.645
an even more famous piece of legislation.

00:08:18.841 --> 00:08:20.569
He and his wife, Ellen, were friends

00:08:20.569 --> 00:08:23.366
of Susan B. Anthony, the suffrage leader.

00:08:23.366 --> 00:08:26.883
- They crafted the 29 words
that would later become

00:08:26.883 --> 00:08:30.259
the 19th Amendment, giving
the women the right to vote.

00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:33.279
- But a shadow clouds
Aaron Sargent's memory.

00:08:34.135 --> 00:08:36.753
Though thousands of Chinese
workers helped build

00:08:36.753 --> 00:08:39.090
the mines his town depended on,

00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:43.479
he also wrote the infamous
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

00:08:44.375 --> 00:08:47.452
- There's this real dark
underbelly to Nevada City--

00:08:47.452 --> 00:08:50.852
the way we treated our
immigrants, the laborers.

00:08:52.577 --> 00:08:54.185
- Gold mining flourished

00:08:54.185 --> 00:08:56.463
through the Great
Depression, but was banned

00:08:56.463 --> 00:08:59.830
as an unessential industry
during World War II.

00:08:59.830 --> 00:09:03.116
- Only a portion of those
mines ever opened again.

00:09:03.116 --> 00:09:06.143
But the Empire Mine,
which is now a state park,

00:09:06.143 --> 00:09:09.044
ran until about 1956 or so.

00:09:09.044 --> 00:09:11.478
[plaintive guitar music]

00:09:11.478 --> 00:09:15.574
- When it closed, 800
workers lost their jobs.

00:09:15.574 --> 00:09:17.922
Logging filled some of the void.

00:09:17.922 --> 00:09:21.208
- You have a number of
local mills and operations.

00:09:21.208 --> 00:09:24.725
You have a little bit
of small gold mining.

00:09:24.725 --> 00:09:25.973
You have cattle ranching.

00:09:26.843 --> 00:09:29.680
These towns are no longer wealthy.

00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:31.828
They're sort of a backwater, really.

00:09:31.828 --> 00:09:33.899
But they are entirely charming.

00:09:35.924 --> 00:09:37.922
- By the early 1960s,

00:09:37.922 --> 00:09:41.328
a few city people--including
two San Franciscans,

00:09:41.328 --> 00:09:43.686
David Osborn and Charles Woods--

00:09:43.686 --> 00:09:47.052
began recognizing the
tourist opportunities here.

00:09:47.052 --> 00:09:49.000
- And they get ahold of the--

00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:50.399
what's called the Miners Foundry,

00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.657
right in the middle of a
small village, you know.

00:09:52.657 --> 00:09:56.073
And they create this
funny, goofy sort of thing

00:09:56.073 --> 00:09:58.521
called the American Victorian Museum,

00:09:58.521 --> 00:10:00.239
which contains all kinds of antiquities

00:10:00.239 --> 00:10:01.937
that they buy up and put in there.

00:10:02.807 --> 00:10:05.774
- In 1967, part of Nevada City's

00:10:05.774 --> 00:10:08.071
historic charm was lost.

00:10:08.071 --> 00:10:10.948
A freeway was built through
its business district

00:10:10.948 --> 00:10:14.060
despite the efforts of one young man.

00:10:14.060 --> 00:10:16.143
- And it really was kind
of like rape and pillage

00:10:16.143 --> 00:10:18.101
of our town at the time.

00:10:18.101 --> 00:10:20.849
I was around 10, 11 years old.

00:10:20.849 --> 00:10:23.516
I would go up along the freeway

00:10:23.516 --> 00:10:25.953
and kind of fill--as much as I could,

00:10:25.953 --> 00:10:27.422
being as young as I was--

00:10:27.422 --> 00:10:30.049
fill these gas tanks
of these big machines,

00:10:30.049 --> 00:10:34.904
the graders and the earth gougers,

00:10:34.904 --> 00:10:37.362
with sugar or water or whatever.

00:10:37.362 --> 00:10:40.316
I guess now I'd be called a terrorist.

00:10:40.316 --> 00:10:42.896
[mellow music]

00:10:54.695 --> 00:10:57.752
- The '60s were a time
when many young Americans

00:10:57.752 --> 00:10:59.663
were searching for a simpler life.

00:11:02.787 --> 00:11:04.685
- From about 1968, you have this--

00:11:04.685 --> 00:11:06.603
what I call the hippie diaspora,

00:11:06.603 --> 00:11:08.541
where people are leaving the cities

00:11:08.541 --> 00:11:11.265
and these people show
up here in VW microbuses

00:11:11.265 --> 00:11:13.126
and whatever else will run.

00:11:13.126 --> 00:11:15.064
- It was another gold rush,

00:11:15.064 --> 00:11:17.452
but with a different idea of gold.

00:11:17.452 --> 00:11:20.639
- There is a wholesale rejection

00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:23.509
of the traditional
sense of what wealth is.

00:11:24.944 --> 00:11:27.342
- In his song, "Before the Deluge,"

00:11:27.342 --> 00:11:30.463
Jackson Browne captured
the spirit of the era.

00:11:30.463 --> 00:11:34.067
♪ Some of them were dreamers ♪

00:11:34.067 --> 00:11:37.012
- We we young and naive

00:11:37.012 --> 00:11:40.349
and we had all kinds of energy,

00:11:40.349 --> 00:11:41.917
and so we were gonna show people

00:11:41.917 --> 00:11:44.708
how to really live up here.

00:11:47.534 --> 00:11:51.971
♪ With the energy of the innocent ♪

00:11:51.971 --> 00:11:56.570
♪ They were gathering the tools ♪

00:11:56.570 --> 00:12:01.565
♪ They would need to make
their journey back to nature ♪

00:12:02.671 --> 00:12:06.673
- It was no power, no
electricity, no telephones,

00:12:06.673 --> 00:12:08.783
and we had kerosene lamps--

00:12:09.650 --> 00:12:12.747
so we were tied in to fossil
fuel like everybody else,

00:12:12.747 --> 00:12:14.524
but we didn't know it.

00:12:14.524 --> 00:12:16.569
♪ With their hearts they turned ♪

00:12:16.569 --> 00:12:21.138
♪ To each other's hearts for refuge ♪

00:12:21.138 --> 00:12:23.386
- We didn't have any way of communicating

00:12:23.386 --> 00:12:26.743
and then somebody said "Well,
we all oughta get CBs,"

00:12:26.743 --> 00:12:29.919
which was great, and we
would get on at five o'clock

00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:33.486
and exchange information
from little tiny things

00:12:33.486 --> 00:12:35.564
to big important things.

00:12:35.564 --> 00:12:36.865
And it was a lot of fun.

00:12:38.241 --> 00:12:40.299
- Dozens of urban refugees

00:12:40.299 --> 00:12:42.976
bought cheap land on San Juan Ridge,

00:12:42.976 --> 00:12:45.604
just north of Nevada City.

00:12:45.604 --> 00:12:49.969
- It was a bunch of
ragtag, back-to-the-land

00:12:49.969 --> 00:12:53.416
young people living in marginal housing.

00:12:53.416 --> 00:12:55.114
I don't know how the
county ever let us do it.

00:12:55.114 --> 00:12:56.942
- They don't believe in going and

00:12:56.942 --> 00:12:58.681
trying to get a corporate job.

00:12:58.681 --> 00:13:00.599
They believe in finding quality of life.

00:13:00.599 --> 00:13:02.916
- Everybody had a notion

00:13:02.916 --> 00:13:04.864
that we have to get out of the city.

00:13:04.864 --> 00:13:07.595
We have to get back to the land.

00:13:08.820 --> 00:13:10.339
People wanted to live here

00:13:10.339 --> 00:13:12.986
more than they wanted a good job

00:13:12.986 --> 00:13:16.253
so, for your kids, it was a fantastic

00:13:16.253 --> 00:13:21.248
Huck Finn-like existence
with lots of exploration.

00:13:21.708 --> 00:13:23.795
- It was terrific growing up as a kid

00:13:23.795 --> 00:13:26.972
in the back-to-the-land
movement, in the counter-culture,

00:13:26.972 --> 00:13:28.800
because everybody was your teacher.

00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:31.488
Everybody was working together.

00:13:31.488 --> 00:13:33.785
There were people with a
variety of different skills.

00:13:33.785 --> 00:13:36.942
My mom and dad were
Midwestern suburbanites.

00:13:36.942 --> 00:13:38.351
They didn't know how to use chainsaws.

00:13:38.351 --> 00:13:39.610
They didn't know how to build anything,

00:13:39.610 --> 00:13:42.277
but they bought raw land
with three little kids,

00:13:42.277 --> 00:13:44.754
and proceeded to clear the brush.

00:13:44.754 --> 00:13:46.393
And when we needed help,

00:13:46.393 --> 00:13:48.121
we called upon our neighbors, you know,

00:13:48.121 --> 00:13:51.140
to lift walls and work with us together.

00:13:51.140 --> 00:13:56.052
♪ Let creation reveal
its secrets by and by ♪

00:13:56.892 --> 00:13:58.161
- One of the new arrivals

00:13:58.161 --> 00:14:00.509
was a poet with a large following.

00:14:00.509 --> 00:14:02.487
Gary Snyder had spent a decade

00:14:02.487 --> 00:14:04.964
studying Buddhism in Japan.

00:14:04.964 --> 00:14:08.181
- And a lot of people had
an interest in Buddhism,

00:14:08.181 --> 00:14:10.750
and a lot of those people decided to stay

00:14:10.750 --> 00:14:12.826
and bought land themselves.

00:14:12.826 --> 00:14:14.495
- I always knew that when I came back

00:14:14.495 --> 00:14:15.644
to live in the United States

00:14:15.644 --> 00:14:18.591
I was not gonna live in the city.

00:14:18.591 --> 00:14:22.239
And I was already imagining, you know,

00:14:22.239 --> 00:14:24.774
what kind of territory I
would want to settle in

00:14:24.774 --> 00:14:27.002
and what I would do there.

00:14:27.002 --> 00:14:31.997
I had also put a lot of thought
into environmental problems,

00:14:32.257 --> 00:14:36.526
into natural history, into
forestry work and thought,

00:14:37.392 --> 00:14:42.167
and it was a very reasonable choice

00:14:43.056 --> 00:14:47.062
to move up here in 1969.

00:14:47.062 --> 00:14:49.410
I was in the middle of designing

00:14:49.410 --> 00:14:52.347
my own political outlook at that time,

00:14:52.347 --> 00:14:54.686
which is bioregionalism.

00:14:54.686 --> 00:14:57.951
[water flowing]

00:14:57.951 --> 00:15:00.379
- In Snyder's bioregional view,

00:15:00.379 --> 00:15:03.566
true wealth is found in
knowing a place well,

00:15:03.566 --> 00:15:07.032
building a community of
friends and living simply,

00:15:07.032 --> 00:15:10.658
as reflected in his
poem "For the Children."

00:15:10.658 --> 00:15:13.376
- The rising hills, the slopes,

00:15:13.376 --> 00:15:17.292
of statistics lie before us.

00:15:17.292 --> 00:15:22.187
The steep climb of
everything going up, up,

00:15:22.187 --> 00:15:23.938
as we all go down.

00:15:25.464 --> 00:15:29.230
In the next century or
the one beyond that,

00:15:29.230 --> 00:15:33.506
they say, are valleys, pastures,

00:15:33.506 --> 00:15:36.153
we can meet there in peace

00:15:36.153 --> 00:15:37.095
if we make it.

00:15:38.371 --> 00:15:41.637
To climb these coming crests

00:15:41.637 --> 00:15:43.026
one word to you,

00:15:43.026 --> 00:15:45.726
to you and your children:

00:15:46.802 --> 00:15:48.970
stay together

00:15:48.970 --> 00:15:50.591
learn the flowers

00:15:51.737 --> 00:15:52.569
go light.

00:15:53.755 --> 00:15:56.752
[pensive guitar music]

00:15:56.752 --> 00:15:58.690
- At first, most of the newcomers

00:15:58.690 --> 00:16:00.199
stayed on the ridge.

00:16:00.199 --> 00:16:02.407
But Mike Snegg went to town

00:16:02.407 --> 00:16:04.694
to help a friend run a grocery store

00:16:04.694 --> 00:16:06.932
called Good Morning Natural Foods.

00:16:06.932 --> 00:16:09.000
- I knew nothing about food.

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:10.129
But I knew how to do business

00:16:10.129 --> 00:16:11.677
because that's what I came from.

00:16:11.677 --> 00:16:14.325
He had about 10 hippies working for him,

00:16:14.325 --> 00:16:17.342
an hour a day each, so
they could go to the river

00:16:17.342 --> 00:16:19.250
for the rest of the day.

00:16:19.250 --> 00:16:22.234
And I come up and, "Well, I
don't think we need 10 people.

00:16:22.234 --> 00:16:24.462
We're only doing $50 a day,

00:16:24.462 --> 00:16:25.600
you know, in gross income.

00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:28.121
So I'll just take their place."

00:16:28.121 --> 00:16:30.289
We had the business for a couple of years,

00:16:30.289 --> 00:16:35.254
and then we moved to the
main grocery store in town.

00:16:35.254 --> 00:16:38.660
And it was like the Whole
Foods of Nevada City.

00:16:38.660 --> 00:16:40.658
- Not everyone was impressed.

00:16:42.556 --> 00:16:44.924
- We opened the store,
we had Hare Krishna music

00:16:44.924 --> 00:16:46.802
blasting out the front door.

00:16:46.802 --> 00:16:48.650
Remember, this is a logging town.

00:16:48.650 --> 00:16:51.218
And now, oh, my God,
here comes the hippies.

00:16:51.218 --> 00:16:53.675
We got rocks thrown at our window

00:16:53.675 --> 00:16:55.823
from the Committee to
Clean Up Nevada City.

00:16:57.442 --> 00:16:59.090
- With their long hair and beads,

00:16:59.090 --> 00:17:01.707
the hippies attracted attention.

00:17:02.207 --> 00:17:05.317
- And everybody just stopped and stared.

00:17:06.433 --> 00:17:11.428
Nobody in this town had seen
anybody like that ever before.

00:17:12.237 --> 00:17:14.765
You know, they walked by an old logger

00:17:14.765 --> 00:17:18.328
and he was heard to say, "What is it?"

00:17:21.030 --> 00:17:23.816
- "It" might have been Mike Snegg.

00:17:23.816 --> 00:17:27.752
- So, from the day that
guy walked down the street,

00:17:27.752 --> 00:17:31.828
it wasn't long until the
generation of people here

00:17:32.996 --> 00:17:36.975
were adopting hippie values.

00:17:41.858 --> 00:17:44.265
- Nevada City was changing.

00:17:44.265 --> 00:17:46.353
The city passed an ordinance banning

00:17:46.353 --> 00:17:48.461
neon signs and power lines,

00:17:48.461 --> 00:17:52.217
and replacing electric
street lights with gas lamps.

00:17:52.217 --> 00:17:54.215
The tourists loved it.

00:17:54.215 --> 00:17:57.492
- That was the single
biggest thing that happened

00:17:57.492 --> 00:18:00.009
for the economic success
of the community here,

00:18:00.009 --> 00:18:02.890
because we went back in time.

00:18:04.515 --> 00:18:06.046
And it helped us go forward.

00:18:07.742 --> 00:18:08.804
It was a big deal.

00:18:11.548 --> 00:18:12.907
- The changes made Mike

00:18:12.907 --> 00:18:14.735
optimistic about the town.

00:18:14.735 --> 00:18:16.903
He left for awhile for Israel,

00:18:16.903 --> 00:18:20.159
and met a woman who'd been a
political activist in Berkeley.

00:18:20.159 --> 00:18:22.227
- So he brought me back to Nevada City

00:18:22.227 --> 00:18:25.244
and it was full of hippies,

00:18:25.244 --> 00:18:28.561
and they were all really
wonderful people and welcoming.

00:18:28.561 --> 00:18:31.188
- But they weren't necessarily employed.

00:18:31.188 --> 00:18:34.336
- When I first came
everyone was baking bread,

00:18:34.336 --> 00:18:37.232
and wearing these long, flowing dresses,

00:18:37.232 --> 00:18:40.734
and sitting around,
and everyone eventually

00:18:40.734 --> 00:18:42.054
had to get a job [laughs].

00:18:44.745 --> 00:18:48.691
- My family has been into
real estate since 1948,

00:18:48.691 --> 00:18:50.582
and so I thought, "Well,
my family owns real estate

00:18:50.582 --> 00:18:52.817
so why don't I do real estate?"

00:18:52.817 --> 00:18:54.035
Makes sense.

00:18:54.035 --> 00:18:56.093
- Nina was less certain of that.

00:18:56.093 --> 00:18:58.791
- When Mike decided he was
going to go into real estate,

00:18:58.791 --> 00:19:00.399
that was a big blow [laughs],

00:19:00.399 --> 00:19:01.848
because I didn't know
what I was gonna tell

00:19:01.848 --> 00:19:04.931
my friends in Berkeley. And so I said,

00:19:04.931 --> 00:19:06.740
"Okay, you can have a real estate company

00:19:06.740 --> 00:19:09.347
but it has to be named Grass Roots Realty,

00:19:09.347 --> 00:19:12.584
which means we're gonna
always bear in mind

00:19:12.584 --> 00:19:14.112
what goes on in this community

00:19:14.112 --> 00:19:16.360
and be supportive of
everything that we can

00:19:16.360 --> 00:19:18.351
that is positive."

00:19:18.351 --> 00:19:20.259
- And within, I'd say, a year,

00:19:20.259 --> 00:19:22.467
we were dominating the market here.

00:19:22.467 --> 00:19:24.345
It's Grass Roots Realty.

00:19:24.345 --> 00:19:26.816
And that lasted for 30-some years.

00:19:28.381 --> 00:19:31.198
- Over the years, their
marketing was unique.

00:19:31.198 --> 00:19:34.285
They took out full page
ads in the local paper,

00:19:34.285 --> 00:19:35.794
but used most of the space

00:19:35.794 --> 00:19:38.221
to promote non-profit organizations.

00:19:38.221 --> 00:19:41.058
- And in every full
page ad we had one, two

00:19:41.058 --> 00:19:45.873
or three non-profits-- the
food bank, the homeless.

00:19:45.873 --> 00:19:47.132
There was lots of them.

00:19:47.132 --> 00:19:50.199
And then around that, we
had our houses for sale.

00:19:50.199 --> 00:19:52.727
- So this was an idea
that everybody got behind.

00:19:52.727 --> 00:19:55.823
I was really proud of
it, Mike was proud of it,

00:19:55.823 --> 00:19:59.430
and all the realtors
were so excited about it.

00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:01.641
And it was just a wonderful thing to do.

00:20:02.946 --> 00:20:04.685
- But it was just one example

00:20:04.685 --> 00:20:06.915
of Nevada City's changing culture.

00:20:09.949 --> 00:20:12.677
- Welcome to the other side.

00:20:12.677 --> 00:20:14.695
- KVMR radio has been the voice

00:20:14.695 --> 00:20:17.035
of Nevada City for 40 years...

00:20:17.035 --> 00:20:20.409
[mellow string music]

00:20:20.409 --> 00:20:22.357
...helping bring the community together

00:20:22.357 --> 00:20:25.494
around popular music and local issues.

00:20:25.494 --> 00:20:29.190
It was the brainchild of David
Osborn and Charles Woods,

00:20:29.190 --> 00:20:30.679
who had done much to preserve

00:20:30.679 --> 00:20:33.476
the historic character of the town.

00:20:33.476 --> 00:20:34.712
- They call me up one day and said,

00:20:34.712 --> 00:20:37.279
"Look, we're thinking about
starting a radio station.

00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:39.470
What do you think about the idea?"

00:20:39.470 --> 00:20:42.357
- A year later, Mikail
Graham was on the air.

00:20:42.357 --> 00:20:44.695
- ...and welcome to KVMR FM.

00:20:45.085 --> 00:20:50.080
And I did my first show on the
first Sunday of August 1978,

00:20:52.137 --> 00:20:55.045
and have pretty much been
on the air ever since.

00:20:55.045 --> 00:20:59.541
♪ How many roads must a man walk down ♪

00:21:00.429 --> 00:21:01.708
- They started in a shack

00:21:01.708 --> 00:21:04.218
on a mountaintop with only a turntable.

00:21:05.344 --> 00:21:08.231
- Tonight, a special
show--a good friend of mine,

00:21:08.231 --> 00:21:11.508
great musician, a local, Robbie Landsburg.

00:21:11.508 --> 00:21:13.246
Robbie, welcome to the show.

00:21:13.246 --> 00:21:14.455
- Thanks, man, thanks for having me.

00:21:14.455 --> 00:21:15.374
- Great to have you.

00:21:15.374 --> 00:21:16.822
And you do your radio show

00:21:16.822 --> 00:21:18.571
and you just never knew what to expect.

00:21:18.571 --> 00:21:20.069
Robbie, where we gonna go next?

00:21:20.069 --> 00:21:22.986
You didn't know who was
listening or if anybody was.

00:21:22.986 --> 00:21:24.585
- People were.

00:21:24.585 --> 00:21:28.651
40,000 now tune in and support
the station financially.

00:21:28.651 --> 00:21:31.947
More than a hundred volunteers
host weekly programs.

00:21:31.947 --> 00:21:33.216
- You know, I sort of think of it as

00:21:33.216 --> 00:21:35.384
like one of the last
little bastions of light

00:21:35.384 --> 00:21:38.261
that's still beaming out community radio.

00:21:38.261 --> 00:21:40.559
'Cause there isn't a lot of
this stuff around, y'know.

00:21:42.221 --> 00:21:47.216
[upbeat music]
[indistinct chatter]

00:21:47.971 --> 00:21:49.799
- That bastion of light brought Tom

00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:52.337
and Debra Weistar to Nevada City.

00:21:52.337 --> 00:21:56.003
They run the Synergia Learning
Center on San Juan Ridge.

00:21:56.003 --> 00:21:59.759
- I was stopped, really,
in my tracks by KVMR

00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.446
and the different
broadcasters and the activism

00:22:03.446 --> 00:22:04.278
that they were talking about,

00:22:04.278 --> 00:22:07.522
and the different kinds
of music I was exposed to.

00:22:07.522 --> 00:22:09.350
- Frustrated with traditional methods

00:22:09.350 --> 00:22:12.110
of education, the
Weistars found a community

00:22:12.110 --> 00:22:14.575
that was open to new ideas.

00:22:14.575 --> 00:22:16.732
- There was a big move by the community

00:22:16.732 --> 00:22:18.850
to build their own schoolhouse,

00:22:18.850 --> 00:22:22.077
to have more control
over what was happening

00:22:22.077 --> 00:22:23.925
educationally for the kids.

00:22:23.925 --> 00:22:26.083
- I think we had a common
aim, and the common aim

00:22:26.083 --> 00:22:30.009
was to support our children
so that they could flourish

00:22:30.009 --> 00:22:32.337
because they could then take their place

00:22:32.337 --> 00:22:34.698
in the world in a powerful way.

00:22:34.698 --> 00:22:38.351
[clapping]
[shouting]

00:22:38.351 --> 00:22:40.798
- Generally, what we're doing here is

00:22:40.798 --> 00:22:45.793
picking up where things don't
really happen in a classroom,

00:22:45.793 --> 00:22:49.140
where kids are able to really explore

00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:52.597
their perceived limitations
on the ropes course,

00:22:52.597 --> 00:22:54.834
where they're put in situations

00:22:54.834 --> 00:22:57.192
where they really have to
interact with each other

00:22:57.192 --> 00:22:59.390
in a more meaningful way.

00:22:59.390 --> 00:23:00.838
They have to take leadership,

00:23:00.838 --> 00:23:03.466
they have to solve problems together,

00:23:03.466 --> 00:23:05.693
and pretty much everything is designed

00:23:05.693 --> 00:23:08.645
so it can't be done by yourself.

00:23:08.645 --> 00:23:11.226
[upbeat music]

00:23:12.956 --> 00:23:14.375
- Students from other schools

00:23:14.375 --> 00:23:16.183
come here for a week-long immersion

00:23:16.183 --> 00:23:18.541
in experiential education.

00:23:18.541 --> 00:23:19.510
- Give it one more try.

00:23:19.510 --> 00:23:20.821
This is our last try.

00:23:22.477 --> 00:23:23.675
- Here on the ropes course

00:23:23.675 --> 00:23:25.833
it's all about cooperation,

00:23:25.833 --> 00:23:27.821
and we really work hard to keep

00:23:27.821 --> 00:23:29.959
the competitiveness out of it.

00:23:29.959 --> 00:23:32.557
Why is there competition
involved in learning?

00:23:32.557 --> 00:23:35.863
It takes the spark away,
takes creativity away,

00:23:35.863 --> 00:23:37.363
and it's toxic.

00:23:37.363 --> 00:23:39.300
[all laughing]

00:23:39.300 --> 00:23:41.707
If young people are trained to do

00:23:41.707 --> 00:23:45.474
what they're told based on
the reward that they will get,

00:23:45.474 --> 00:23:47.392
then what will they do?

00:23:47.392 --> 00:23:50.269
Well, they destroy the
environment for a paycheck.

00:23:50.269 --> 00:23:52.599
- We incorporate a lot
of different learning.

00:23:53.436 --> 00:23:55.623
This isn't just outdoor education.

00:23:55.623 --> 00:23:56.692
- Yes, or no?

00:23:56.692 --> 00:23:57.694
- We also have programs that have

00:23:57.694 --> 00:23:59.170
a more academic component,

00:23:59.170 --> 00:24:01.328
and we develop our own curriculum

00:24:01.328 --> 00:24:04.205
and draw from a vast number of traditions

00:24:04.205 --> 00:24:06.792
and a vast number of authors and writers.

00:24:06.792 --> 00:24:09.200
So we're very fortunate
to have Gary Snyder

00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:11.670
who lives just a couple of miles away.

00:24:12.557 --> 00:24:14.706
Our mentors are everywhere.

00:24:14.706 --> 00:24:18.170
[upbeat music]
[indistinct chatter]

00:24:23.503 --> 00:24:26.666
[mellow guitar music]

00:24:28.331 --> 00:24:31.418
- Not only education was changing.

00:24:31.418 --> 00:24:34.415
John Tecklin grew up in
the local counterculture

00:24:34.415 --> 00:24:36.962
with its environmental
ethic, and has become

00:24:36.962 --> 00:24:40.795
one of Nevada County's most
successful organic farmers.

00:24:40.795 --> 00:24:43.376
[mellow guitar music]

00:24:44.225 --> 00:24:47.252
- Well, this is really
not a great place to farm.

00:24:47.252 --> 00:24:49.739
And when I started this farm,

00:24:49.739 --> 00:24:50.848
people thought I was crazy.

00:24:50.848 --> 00:24:52.397
My parents thought I was crazy.

00:24:53.665 --> 00:24:55.191
It's not great farmland,

00:24:55.191 --> 00:24:56.420
the soils are thin,

00:24:56.420 --> 00:24:58.088
there's not very much flat ground,

00:24:58.088 --> 00:24:59.909
there's not very much water.

00:24:59.909 --> 00:25:01.238
What's really favorable about it is that

00:25:01.238 --> 00:25:02.596
there's a great market here.

00:25:02.596 --> 00:25:04.145
So there's a lot of people who

00:25:04.145 --> 00:25:05.194
appreciate what we're doing

00:25:05.194 --> 00:25:08.271
and who want what we can produce.

00:25:08.271 --> 00:25:09.909
There's been this huge movement

00:25:09.909 --> 00:25:11.138
of young people all over the country

00:25:11.138 --> 00:25:12.390
that want to farm.

00:25:14.295 --> 00:25:16.812
Every year we accept five interns.

00:25:16.812 --> 00:25:18.281
For those five positions, we get

00:25:18.281 --> 00:25:20.728
approximately 100 applicants every year,

00:25:20.728 --> 00:25:22.127
and they're from all over the country.

00:25:22.127 --> 00:25:25.184
In fact all over the
world, we get applicants.

00:25:25.184 --> 00:25:26.672
- On an October morning,

00:25:26.672 --> 00:25:31.028
John's crew prepares boxes
of produce for his customers.

00:25:31.028 --> 00:25:34.115
- We grow a great number
of vegetables and fruit

00:25:34.115 --> 00:25:35.284
here at Mountain Bounty,

00:25:35.284 --> 00:25:37.891
pretty much every vegetable
that you can name.

00:25:37.891 --> 00:25:41.428
It's enough to feed about 750 families.

00:25:41.428 --> 00:25:43.838
So we deliver that many boxes every week.

00:25:45.184 --> 00:25:49.080
- Those families are part
of Mountain Bounty CSA.

00:25:49.080 --> 00:25:51.847
- CSA stands for Community
Supported Agriculture,

00:25:51.847 --> 00:25:54.854
and it's a system where small farms

00:25:54.854 --> 00:25:57.611
connect directly with their customers.

00:25:57.611 --> 00:26:00.638
The customers sign up and subscribe

00:26:00.638 --> 00:26:02.280
for a season's worth of produce.

00:26:04.714 --> 00:26:06.552
They're essentially investing

00:26:07.701 --> 00:26:09.993
up front in our season each year.

00:26:09.993 --> 00:26:14.097
[mellow string music]
[indistinct chatter]

00:26:17.232 --> 00:26:20.119
- On Saturdays, produce
from Mountain Bounty

00:26:20.119 --> 00:26:23.176
and other organic growers
delights customers

00:26:23.176 --> 00:26:25.084
at the local farmer's market.

00:26:25.084 --> 00:26:27.651
- And that's become an
incredibly successful

00:26:27.651 --> 00:26:29.310
and vibrant community hub.

00:26:29.310 --> 00:26:32.110
And then we do sell to stores
and restaurants as well...

00:26:34.015 --> 00:26:37.521
...notably Three Forks, which developed

00:26:37.521 --> 00:26:42.426
with a foundational vision
of supporting local farms

00:26:42.426 --> 00:26:46.208
and has been the most true to
that of any other restaurant.

00:26:47.581 --> 00:26:48.710
- It was lot harder

00:26:48.710 --> 00:26:51.847
to find organic produce when Michael Funk,

00:26:51.847 --> 00:26:54.345
one of the town's most engaged citizens,

00:26:54.345 --> 00:26:57.921
started Mountain Peoples
Warehouse 40 years ago.

00:26:57.921 --> 00:27:00.688
- Well, in the mid-70s I was a garbage man

00:27:00.688 --> 00:27:03.166
for Sacramento County, which
was kind of the only job

00:27:03.166 --> 00:27:06.982
you could get as a
longhaired-looking hippie.

00:27:06.982 --> 00:27:10.978
But I got interested in picking
fruit as an afternoon hobby

00:27:10.978 --> 00:27:14.245
and I got interested
in health and wellness.

00:27:14.245 --> 00:27:16.992
- He started selling
some of his organic fruit

00:27:16.992 --> 00:27:19.699
to stores in Nevada
City, where many people

00:27:19.699 --> 00:27:21.707
were looking for natural foods.

00:27:21.707 --> 00:27:24.494
- I realized that I didn't
wanna be driving back

00:27:24.494 --> 00:27:25.723
to Sacramento anymore.

00:27:25.723 --> 00:27:27.312
I wanted to stay up here.

00:27:27.312 --> 00:27:29.409
The demand was starting to grow.

00:27:29.409 --> 00:27:31.338
Our problem was supply.

00:27:31.338 --> 00:27:32.996
The produce that we had, generally,

00:27:32.996 --> 00:27:36.233
was very low-quality and
was very hard to find.

00:27:36.233 --> 00:27:38.510
We would have one farmer that grew

00:27:38.510 --> 00:27:42.396
organic broccoli for a
month, and when he ran out

00:27:42.396 --> 00:27:45.054
we didn't have any more for six months.

00:27:45.054 --> 00:27:49.030
There was a point at late
1983 where I wasn't sure

00:27:49.030 --> 00:27:50.668
I was gonna be able to continue.

00:27:50.668 --> 00:27:51.867
We were bouncing checks,

00:27:51.867 --> 00:27:54.285
we were pretty discouraged.

00:27:54.285 --> 00:27:56.562
And I remember my mom calling me,

00:27:56.562 --> 00:27:59.579
saying it was time to get a real job.

00:27:59.579 --> 00:28:02.816
- Instead, they expanded the business.

00:28:02.816 --> 00:28:07.212
- So we went to places
like Susanville and Sonora

00:28:07.212 --> 00:28:11.058
and Feather River, Quincy, and Chico

00:28:11.058 --> 00:28:12.776
and throughout the valley

00:28:12.776 --> 00:28:15.773
where the big city
distributors didn't come.

00:28:15.773 --> 00:28:18.570
And over a period of time,
we built up our volume

00:28:18.570 --> 00:28:22.297
to the point where we
could then start competing.

00:28:22.297 --> 00:28:24.275
- Today, the little company Michael built

00:28:24.275 --> 00:28:26.362
from his Nevada City garage

00:28:26.362 --> 00:28:28.480
is a publicly traded corporation,

00:28:28.480 --> 00:28:31.238
and the largest distributor
of natural foods

00:28:31.238 --> 00:28:32.736
in the United States.

00:28:32.736 --> 00:28:35.577
He never dreamed he'd be so successful.

00:28:35.577 --> 00:28:36.409
- I remember

00:28:36.409 --> 00:28:38.141
for the first several years,

00:28:38.141 --> 00:28:40.778
we paid ourselves $100 a week

00:28:40.778 --> 00:28:44.464
and all the ripe avocados we could eat.

00:28:44.464 --> 00:28:48.850
I was just thinking that selling food

00:28:48.850 --> 00:28:50.648
was better than being a garbage man.

00:28:54.359 --> 00:28:59.354
[bell chiming]
[mellow string music]

00:29:04.514 --> 00:29:07.671
- On its Food Love Farm just outside town,

00:29:07.671 --> 00:29:10.888
Sierra Harvest, a Nevada City non-profit,

00:29:10.888 --> 00:29:14.294
introduces elementary school
children to natural foods.

00:29:14.294 --> 00:29:15.301
- Ooh, good!

00:29:16.632 --> 00:29:18.261
- By the middle of the summer,

00:29:18.261 --> 00:29:19.569
they'll be hanging off the dock.

00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:21.497
This whole thing will be covered.

00:29:21.497 --> 00:29:23.735
This is one of my favorite
places in the farm.

00:29:23.735 --> 00:29:24.567
- Yeah?

00:29:24.567 --> 00:29:27.022
- Look at how beautiful that is.

00:29:27.022 --> 00:29:29.859
- We have about 800 kids a year

00:29:29.859 --> 00:29:31.917
that come on field trips to this farm

00:29:31.917 --> 00:29:35.044
to be able to touch the soil,

00:29:35.044 --> 00:29:36.802
plant things, harvest things,

00:29:36.802 --> 00:29:38.469
taste what they've grown.

00:29:38.469 --> 00:29:40.967
- Okay, so who likes potatoes?

00:29:41.887 --> 00:29:43.795
- Go ahead, so you
wanna put the cut side--

00:29:43.795 --> 00:29:45.273
what did she say? Down.

00:29:45.273 --> 00:29:46.106
There you go.

00:29:46.106 --> 00:29:48.121
- I'm gonna bury mine.

00:29:48.121 --> 00:29:49.529
- And do you remember what she said

00:29:49.529 --> 00:29:51.188
about how many potatoes?

00:29:51.188 --> 00:29:52.596
- Malaika Bishop grew up

00:29:52.596 --> 00:29:55.343
in the local counterculture,
left for college,

00:29:55.343 --> 00:29:57.921
and started The People's
Grocery in Oakland.

00:29:57.921 --> 00:30:00.248
But she returned home a few years ago

00:30:00.248 --> 00:30:02.187
to support local farmers.

00:30:02.187 --> 00:30:04.434
- Do you wanna pick some
carrots on the farm?

00:30:06.073 --> 00:30:07.831
What we're seeing-- and we are hearing it

00:30:07.831 --> 00:30:09.459
from the parents, too-- is that

00:30:09.459 --> 00:30:11.367
they are changing their behavior.

00:30:11.367 --> 00:30:13.385
They're trying things for the first time

00:30:13.385 --> 00:30:15.084
that they won't try at home.

00:30:15.084 --> 00:30:16.762
They're asking for it in their lunch,

00:30:16.762 --> 00:30:19.319
they're asking for it at dinner time,

00:30:19.319 --> 00:30:23.375
setting themselves on a
trajectory of a lifestyle

00:30:23.375 --> 00:30:26.512
of healthy eating for
the rest of their lives.

00:30:26.512 --> 00:30:28.760
[chicks chirping]

00:30:30.308 --> 00:30:31.957
- You may pick them up like this.

00:30:33.625 --> 00:30:35.024
Just like that, and if they start

00:30:35.024 --> 00:30:37.531
flapping their little
wings, hurry, put them down

00:30:37.531 --> 00:30:40.052
'cause we don't want
them to hurt themselves.

00:30:40.052 --> 00:30:42.087
- Malaika hopes some of these children

00:30:42.087 --> 00:30:45.014
will want to become farmers themselves.

00:30:45.014 --> 00:30:48.171
- Our goal at Sierra Harvest is to grow

00:30:48.171 --> 00:30:50.488
25% of our food locally.

00:30:50.488 --> 00:30:54.115
Right now, we're at 1% to 2%.

00:30:54.115 --> 00:30:56.572
The next generation does not see

00:30:56.572 --> 00:30:59.829
a viable career in
farming because it is so

00:30:59.829 --> 00:31:01.700
difficult to make a living doing it.

00:31:04.264 --> 00:31:07.089
- They can lay a 190 eggs a year.

00:31:14.674 --> 00:31:16.245
...and they're gonna grow all season.

00:31:17.973 --> 00:31:20.553
[mellow string music]

00:31:21.707 --> 00:31:25.343
- What would happen if
all of Nevada County

00:31:25.343 --> 00:31:27.171
decided to eat locally?

00:31:27.171 --> 00:31:29.159
Because we could actually
grow that much food.

00:31:29.159 --> 00:31:30.588
We'd be creating so many jobs

00:31:30.588 --> 00:31:33.511
for people who love growing food.

00:31:33.511 --> 00:31:36.092
[rhythmic dance music]

00:31:44.764 --> 00:31:46.682
- In the old Miners Foundry,

00:31:46.682 --> 00:31:49.389
David Sugalski-- who
performs internationally

00:31:49.389 --> 00:31:51.317
as The Polish Ambassador--

00:31:51.317 --> 00:31:53.086
and his partner Ayla Nereo

00:31:53.086 --> 00:31:55.833
delight hundreds of adoring fans.

00:31:55.833 --> 00:31:58.760
- Previously I was living in the Bay Area,

00:31:58.760 --> 00:32:01.817
and I was just really
taken with this place.

00:32:01.817 --> 00:32:03.315
It's like there's something amazing to do

00:32:03.315 --> 00:32:06.006
every night in this
town, something artistic.

00:32:07.471 --> 00:32:09.839
- We decided to come and
try it out for a few months,

00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:11.427
and a few months turned into a year

00:32:11.427 --> 00:32:14.364
and a year turned into looking at land

00:32:14.364 --> 00:32:17.994
and starting a farm, and we're still here.

00:32:19.998 --> 00:32:23.515
♪ One day we will cherish this soil ♪

00:32:23.515 --> 00:32:25.624
♪ Valued more than gold ♪

00:32:25.624 --> 00:32:29.179
♪ Its value more than gold ♪

00:32:29.179 --> 00:32:30.938
- Ayla and David have been promoting

00:32:30.938 --> 00:32:34.384
an idea called the Village
Building Convergence,

00:32:34.384 --> 00:32:36.632
rallying citizens to
make their communities

00:32:36.632 --> 00:32:39.179
more beautiful and sustainable.

00:32:39.179 --> 00:32:41.197
- It's not only rewarding to
the community that we're in

00:32:41.197 --> 00:32:43.385
but it's super-rewarding
to us, and it just creates

00:32:43.385 --> 00:32:46.062
a more beautiful, rich life experience.

00:32:46.062 --> 00:32:47.541
I think young folks are starting

00:32:47.541 --> 00:32:49.000
to get more engaged right now.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:52.536
I'm feeling it big time
in our circle of friends

00:32:52.536 --> 00:32:55.014
in Nevada County and beyond.

00:32:55.014 --> 00:32:59.040
- Music, art, progressive education,

00:32:59.040 --> 00:33:01.957
organic farming-- the counterculture

00:33:01.957 --> 00:33:04.984
brought remarkable changes to Nevada City.

00:33:04.984 --> 00:33:07.481
But it took a threat to
the beauty they shared

00:33:07.481 --> 00:33:10.768
to bring old guard and newcomers together.

00:33:10.768 --> 00:33:12.806
- You know, the heart of this community,

00:33:12.806 --> 00:33:16.072
besides the town itself,
is the South Yuba River.

00:33:16.072 --> 00:33:18.210
It's 10 minutes outside of town.

00:33:18.210 --> 00:33:20.390
It's spectacular.

00:33:20.390 --> 00:33:23.554
[pensive piano music]

00:33:37.724 --> 00:33:41.387
- Beginning in snowmelt near Donner Pass,

00:33:41.387 --> 00:33:44.794
the Yuba River cascades
through deep canyons,

00:33:44.794 --> 00:33:47.901
smoothing and sculpting
the underlying granite.

00:33:47.901 --> 00:33:51.814
Its clear waters fill
with bathers each summer.

00:33:55.473 --> 00:33:58.160
- Yuba River became a place
where you saw your neighbors

00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:01.157
and had a chance to talk
with them after work hours

00:34:01.157 --> 00:34:02.556
in the late afternoon or the evening

00:34:02.556 --> 00:34:05.083
when it was really hot at your place.

00:34:05.083 --> 00:34:07.581
And it became a really
center of the culture here.

00:34:10.068 --> 00:34:13.195
- But in 1983 came shocking news.

00:34:13.195 --> 00:34:16.052
Plans were afoot to dam the Yuba,

00:34:16.052 --> 00:34:19.759
flooding some of the most
beautiful stretches of the river.

00:34:19.759 --> 00:34:22.965
Shortly afterwards,
physician Roger Hicks--

00:34:22.965 --> 00:34:25.493
a whitewater rafter on many rivers--

00:34:25.493 --> 00:34:26.832
arrived in town.

00:34:26.832 --> 00:34:28.630
- I moved here because of the Yuba.

00:34:28.630 --> 00:34:31.790
I had no job, my wife didn't have a job.

00:34:32.736 --> 00:34:35.283
- Roger was stunned by the dam proposal.

00:34:37.970 --> 00:34:41.067
- Back in 1984, there was some opposition

00:34:41.067 --> 00:34:43.075
to this proposed hydropower dam

00:34:43.075 --> 00:34:44.424
but it wasn't very organized.

00:34:44.424 --> 00:34:47.921
It was basically a bunch of naked hippies.

00:34:51.248 --> 00:34:53.826
- The hippies formed an organization--

00:34:53.826 --> 00:34:57.212
the South Yuba River
Citizens League, or SYRCL--

00:34:57.212 --> 00:34:58.564
to fight the dams.

00:35:00.879 --> 00:35:03.186
- When we started to protect this river,

00:35:03.186 --> 00:35:04.805
we didn't know what we were doing.

00:35:04.805 --> 00:35:08.691
We didn't have any money,
no experience at this,

00:35:08.691 --> 00:35:12.257
so we just tried to tap into the love

00:35:12.257 --> 00:35:14.195
that people have for this river.

00:35:14.195 --> 00:35:16.393
We had little concerts.

00:35:16.393 --> 00:35:18.561
We had auctions.

00:35:18.561 --> 00:35:21.428
We had a wine and beer-tasting--

00:35:21.428 --> 00:35:23.726
all sorts of fund-raising events.

00:35:23.726 --> 00:35:25.584
- But powerful interests,

00:35:25.584 --> 00:35:30.249
including a big French
corporation, wanted the dams.

00:35:30.249 --> 00:35:32.037
- So for awhile there are
all these French people

00:35:32.037 --> 00:35:33.846
walking around town,
and at the grocery store

00:35:33.846 --> 00:35:36.423
you'd hear people speaking French.

00:35:36.423 --> 00:35:38.970
They were not the kind
that were baking croissants

00:35:38.970 --> 00:35:41.328
or making fine wine.

00:35:41.328 --> 00:35:43.286
They were not into naked hippies at all.

00:35:43.286 --> 00:35:46.033
They were more into nuclear power plants

00:35:46.033 --> 00:35:47.385
and hydropower plants.

00:35:48.787 --> 00:35:51.078
- SYRCL asked California legislators

00:35:51.078 --> 00:35:53.496
to protect the South Yuba by declaring it

00:35:53.496 --> 00:35:55.844
a Wild and Scenic River.

00:35:55.844 --> 00:35:57.702
- We had done a poll and we learned

00:35:57.702 --> 00:36:00.878
that even the most
conservative Republican men

00:36:00.878 --> 00:36:03.146
in this community, 80% of them,

00:36:03.146 --> 00:36:05.797
were opposed to building
a dam on the Yuba River.

00:36:06.663 --> 00:36:08.161
- That didn't matter.

00:36:08.161 --> 00:36:11.178
Deep pockets blocked their
efforts time and again,

00:36:11.178 --> 00:36:13.196
and local officials wouldn't support

00:36:13.196 --> 00:36:16.173
the Wild and Scenic River campaign.

00:36:16.173 --> 00:36:17.652
- It wasn't an easy struggle.

00:36:17.652 --> 00:36:20.112
There were lots of defeats over the years.

00:36:23.995 --> 00:36:25.384
- For more than a decade,

00:36:25.384 --> 00:36:28.334
the fate of the Yuba remained unresolved.

00:36:29.290 --> 00:36:32.637
Then, in the mid-1990s, a discouraged

00:36:32.637 --> 00:36:36.453
yet still hopeful SYRCL
found powerful allies--

00:36:36.453 --> 00:36:39.630
citizens worried about unplanned sprawl.

00:36:39.630 --> 00:36:41.788
- The economy was just popping.

00:36:41.788 --> 00:36:44.795
Housing developments were being proposed

00:36:44.795 --> 00:36:46.203
all over the county.

00:36:46.203 --> 00:36:49.899
- And you have a kind of
suburban development in the woods

00:36:49.899 --> 00:36:52.507
that is absolutely
unprecedented in history.

00:36:52.507 --> 00:36:54.984
- And people became concerned about

00:36:54.984 --> 00:36:56.553
what was gonna happen in this county

00:36:56.553 --> 00:36:59.630
if we didn't have a
different approach to growth.

00:36:59.630 --> 00:37:03.975
- There was really minimal
review and oversight.

00:37:03.975 --> 00:37:05.923
So what I was doing is I was a surveyor,

00:37:05.923 --> 00:37:08.171
and I would look at this
lot that we just laid out

00:37:08.171 --> 00:37:09.407
and I'd say, "There's no way in hell

00:37:09.407 --> 00:37:11.671
somebody can build a house here.

00:37:12.774 --> 00:37:14.382
Why are we doing this?"

00:37:15.334 --> 00:37:17.911
And you know, I'd be working
with some other surveyor

00:37:17.911 --> 00:37:21.275
and he'd say, "Andy, if
some dumb sonnavabitch

00:37:21.275 --> 00:37:23.922
wants to buy this lot, why do we care?"

00:37:25.084 --> 00:37:27.502
- To resist unplanned development,

00:37:27.502 --> 00:37:30.079
concerned citizens formed an organization

00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:33.186
called the Rural Quality Coalition.

00:37:33.186 --> 00:37:35.384
- During this time, one of the opponents

00:37:35.384 --> 00:37:37.342
of the Rural Quality Coalition

00:37:37.342 --> 00:37:39.979
put out the word that the
Rural Quality Coalition

00:37:39.979 --> 00:37:42.230
were the Viet Cong of Nevada County.

00:37:43.146 --> 00:37:46.962
You could see there was a lot of splitting

00:37:46.962 --> 00:37:49.410
of our community, but there was also

00:37:49.410 --> 00:37:51.058
a lot of drawing together.

00:37:51.058 --> 00:37:54.954
- Whether you're Republican
or Democrat, or Libertarian,

00:37:54.954 --> 00:37:57.172
you care about where you live.

00:37:57.172 --> 00:37:59.320
- Both SYRCL and the Coalition

00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:01.578
realized that to change things,

00:38:01.578 --> 00:38:05.424
they needed to elect a different
set of county supervisors.

00:38:05.424 --> 00:38:08.231
Pushed by her friends
but too late to file,

00:38:08.231 --> 00:38:11.058
Izzy Martin became a write-in candidate.

00:38:11.058 --> 00:38:14.055
- And amazingly enough, when
the first Tuesday of June

00:38:14.055 --> 00:38:18.651
came in 1998, I managed
to survive the primary

00:38:18.651 --> 00:38:20.978
and get on to a final ballot.

00:38:20.978 --> 00:38:23.416
The next morning, I was
called by two people.

00:38:23.416 --> 00:38:25.913
The first was the
California State Historian,

00:38:25.913 --> 00:38:28.807
Kevin Starr, who said, "You
know, you're the first person

00:38:28.807 --> 00:38:32.547
in California history to win
as a write-in candidate."

00:38:32.547 --> 00:38:35.024
The second person was from the
Secretary of State's office

00:38:35.024 --> 00:38:37.402
saying, "Who are you?"

00:38:37.402 --> 00:38:39.280
- She won again in November,

00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:40.808
and she wasn't alone.

00:38:40.808 --> 00:38:43.895
- We had four supervisors
elected, out of five.

00:38:43.895 --> 00:38:45.733
Couldn't get any better than that.

00:38:45.733 --> 00:38:47.065
We danced all night.

00:38:49.330 --> 00:38:51.917
- I resolved that my top first campaign

00:38:51.917 --> 00:38:55.284
was going to be bringing
our Board of Supervisors

00:38:55.284 --> 00:38:58.970
in favor of a Wild and
Scenic status for our river,

00:38:58.970 --> 00:39:03.755
and got the Board to vote in
favor of sponsoring a bill

00:39:03.755 --> 00:39:05.167
to protect the Yuba River.

00:39:06.043 --> 00:39:09.909
- So finally in 1999, all
the stars were aligned

00:39:09.909 --> 00:39:13.745
and we were able to get the
state Wild and Scenic bill

00:39:13.745 --> 00:39:16.732
passed and signed by Governor Gray Davis.

00:39:16.732 --> 00:39:20.218
And since then, this
river has been protected.

00:39:20.218 --> 00:39:23.795
[mellow piano music]

00:39:23.795 --> 00:39:26.023
- The Yuba has yielded more gold

00:39:26.023 --> 00:39:28.970
than any other river in the lower 48.

00:39:28.970 --> 00:39:31.621
But that may be its least important gift.

00:39:33.705 --> 00:39:36.962
- Water is the lifeblood of the planet

00:39:36.962 --> 00:39:40.089
and I'm a doctor, so I see rivers

00:39:40.978 --> 00:39:44.515
as the arteries that bring that water.

00:39:44.515 --> 00:39:46.952
The South Yuba is a place that

00:39:46.952 --> 00:39:49.550
I brought my kids when they were young.

00:39:49.550 --> 00:39:53.962
When they come back, this
is the first place they go.

00:40:00.451 --> 00:40:04.964
- SYRCL realized in that 16-year fight

00:40:04.964 --> 00:40:07.122
that it wasn't just
about fighting the dam,

00:40:07.122 --> 00:40:09.779
it was about protecting the watershed.

00:40:09.779 --> 00:40:13.616
The success story of SYRCL is not just

00:40:13.616 --> 00:40:15.843
that we stopped the dams from being built,

00:40:15.843 --> 00:40:18.740
but that we've created and sustained

00:40:18.740 --> 00:40:23.099
a community of stewards
over the past 32 years.

00:40:24.365 --> 00:40:26.513
- Every fall for the past 15 years,

00:40:26.513 --> 00:40:28.134
we have a river cleanup.

00:40:29.270 --> 00:40:31.518
We have over 600 people that come out

00:40:31.518 --> 00:40:34.528
all over the watershed to
volunteer to pick up trash.

00:40:37.042 --> 00:40:39.070
- Concern for their common home

00:40:39.070 --> 00:40:40.998
brought former adversaries together

00:40:40.998 --> 00:40:43.755
in a spirit of mutual respect.

00:40:43.755 --> 00:40:47.192
- We're not going to be
able to make it as a species

00:40:47.192 --> 00:40:49.939
if we don't get back to this idea

00:40:49.939 --> 00:40:52.137
of neighbor knowing neighbor,
and community members--

00:40:52.137 --> 00:40:55.414
despite their differences
and past histories--

00:40:55.414 --> 00:41:00.326
being able to work together on
things that they care about.

00:41:02.267 --> 00:41:04.115
- Yet many potentially divisive

00:41:04.115 --> 00:41:07.002
environmental challenges remain.

00:41:07.002 --> 00:41:10.299
Englebright Dam, built below
the Wild and Scenic stretch

00:41:10.299 --> 00:41:13.745
of the Yuba in 1941, prevents salmon

00:41:13.745 --> 00:41:16.463
from returning up the river to spawn.

00:41:16.463 --> 00:41:18.261
But it would be difficult to remove it

00:41:18.261 --> 00:41:20.409
without unleashing downstream

00:41:20.409 --> 00:41:23.089
the toxic gravels it was designed to trap.

00:41:25.873 --> 00:41:28.091
The poisonous legacy of the gold rush

00:41:28.091 --> 00:41:31.041
still finds its way into
local water supplies.

00:41:35.465 --> 00:41:37.795
Izzy Martin monitors the dangers.

00:41:39.481 --> 00:41:41.578
- It left behind millions
of pounds of mercury

00:41:41.578 --> 00:41:45.634
in our watershed, and
there's a lot of work to do.

00:41:45.634 --> 00:41:47.213
We just need to find the resources

00:41:47.213 --> 00:41:50.689
and the political will
to prioritize cleaning up

00:41:50.689 --> 00:41:52.029
what happened here.

00:41:52.029 --> 00:41:55.443
[plaintive guitar music]

00:42:01.349 --> 00:42:04.326
- And there are other
environmental issues.

00:42:04.326 --> 00:42:08.731
Tahoe National Forest is
still beautiful, but drought

00:42:08.731 --> 00:42:11.808
and climate change have
made California's forests

00:42:11.808 --> 00:42:15.644
increasingly vulnerable
to massive wildfires.

00:42:15.644 --> 00:42:17.992
For many Nevada County homes,

00:42:17.992 --> 00:42:21.159
scattered widely in the tinderbox forest,

00:42:21.159 --> 00:42:23.989
destruction by flames
is a constant danger.

00:42:25.145 --> 00:42:27.073
- The most antithetical thing you can do

00:42:27.073 --> 00:42:29.401
to the forest is put a
house in the middle of it.

00:42:29.401 --> 00:42:30.969
As soon as you put a
house in the middle of it,

00:42:30.969 --> 00:42:32.577
then you have to put a road to it,

00:42:32.577 --> 00:42:34.548
then you have to have everybody--

00:42:34.548 --> 00:42:36.683
the county, the fire
department, and everybody else--

00:42:36.683 --> 00:42:39.610
worrying about whether they can get

00:42:39.610 --> 00:42:42.937
a police car, a fire truck, to that house

00:42:42.937 --> 00:42:44.678
in time to put out a fire.

00:42:46.184 --> 00:42:48.761
- Architect Charles Durrett has devoted

00:42:48.761 --> 00:42:51.538
much of his work to a
different settlement pattern

00:42:51.538 --> 00:42:53.526
called co-housing.

00:42:53.526 --> 00:42:56.284
- It seemed like our
notion of back-to-the-land

00:42:56.284 --> 00:43:01.279
was putting individuals
equidistant across the landscape.

00:43:01.379 --> 00:43:03.227
- He remembers a conversation

00:43:03.227 --> 00:43:05.135
with a Native American friend.

00:43:05.135 --> 00:43:06.630
- He says, "You know, you white people,

00:43:06.630 --> 00:43:09.178
you build all over hell and high water,

00:43:09.178 --> 00:43:12.185
and you don't seem to have
any concept of the village."

00:43:13.077 --> 00:43:15.435
- Nevada City's co-housing village

00:43:15.435 --> 00:43:19.014
draws from the communal ideas
of the early counterculture,

00:43:19.900 --> 00:43:23.037
but it provides a more
dense pattern of settlement

00:43:23.037 --> 00:43:24.918
that saves natural resources.

00:43:26.345 --> 00:43:28.800
[food sizzling]

00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:31.488
Durrett learned about
co-housing in Denmark

00:43:31.488 --> 00:43:33.060
where the concept is popular.

00:43:35.614 --> 00:43:37.413
Residents own their own homes,

00:43:37.413 --> 00:43:39.194
but share many activities.

00:43:41.658 --> 00:43:44.855
- It's designed to be car-free.

00:43:44.855 --> 00:43:46.573
It's self-managed entirely.

00:43:46.573 --> 00:43:48.541
It's designed to facilitate community.

00:43:48.541 --> 00:43:50.559
It has extensive common facilities--

00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:52.684
about 4,000 square feet here--

00:43:52.684 --> 00:43:55.954
of workshop, common
cooking, common dining.

00:43:55.954 --> 00:43:58.691
We cook dinner formally six nights a week,

00:43:58.691 --> 00:43:59.920
available in the common house.

00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:01.718
Most people eat two or three times a week

00:44:01.718 --> 00:44:02.727
in the common house.

00:44:02.727 --> 00:44:04.448
Every adult cooks once a month.

00:44:05.594 --> 00:44:07.113
- Co-housing is popular

00:44:07.113 --> 00:44:09.101
and environmentally friendly,

00:44:09.101 --> 00:44:11.408
but it's also expensive.

00:44:11.408 --> 00:44:14.795
Many local people struggle
to meet basic needs.

00:44:14.795 --> 00:44:16.324
- It's not always easy to live here.

00:44:16.324 --> 00:44:17.992
It's not unusual for a person to have

00:44:17.992 --> 00:44:19.480
three or four different jobs.

00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:21.339
Homes are expensive, gas is expensive,

00:44:21.339 --> 00:44:23.696
food is expensive, but
you are really making

00:44:23.696 --> 00:44:25.524
a quality of life decision.

00:44:25.524 --> 00:44:27.892
- Nevada City councilwoman
and former mayor

00:44:27.892 --> 00:44:30.909
Reinette Senum made the
decision to return home

00:44:30.909 --> 00:44:33.042
after many years spent away.

00:44:33.042 --> 00:44:35.984
[mellow string music]

00:44:35.984 --> 00:44:38.791
Always willing to take
chances, she once tried

00:44:38.791 --> 00:44:42.348
to join a ski expedition
to the South Pole.

00:44:42.348 --> 00:44:44.395
- So I go down to Berkeley
where the headquarters are

00:44:44.395 --> 00:44:45.914
and I fill out the application

00:44:45.914 --> 00:44:46.883
and they ask specific questions

00:44:46.883 --> 00:44:47.982
like, "How long you been skiing?"

00:44:47.982 --> 00:44:49.420
I'm like, "I've been skiing for 15 years,"

00:44:49.420 --> 00:44:50.899
but they were talking cross-country skiing

00:44:50.899 --> 00:44:52.817
and I was talking water skiing.

00:44:52.817 --> 00:44:54.063
Or they ask questions
like, "What are the coldest

00:44:54.063 --> 00:44:55.524
temperatures you've ever been exposed to?"

00:44:55.524 --> 00:44:57.233
I'm like, "I've been exposed to minus 10,"

00:44:57.233 --> 00:44:59.530
which I thought was very
impressive for California.

00:44:59.530 --> 00:45:01.079
But I didn't tell them
in was a walk-in freezer

00:45:01.079 --> 00:45:02.098
at the local grocery store

00:45:02.098 --> 00:45:03.147
where I used to bag the ice.

00:45:03.147 --> 00:45:05.295
That's where I got my polar training.

00:45:05.295 --> 00:45:06.993
- But though she was accepted,

00:45:06.993 --> 00:45:10.809
Reinette was unable to afford
the cost of the expedition.

00:45:10.809 --> 00:45:15.804
Down but not out, she decided
to ski across Alaska--

00:45:16.333 --> 00:45:18.514
alone, in the winter.

00:45:20.100 --> 00:45:22.847
- In February, I flew to Eagle, Alaska.

00:45:22.847 --> 00:45:24.935
From there, I planned to
ski clear across the state

00:45:24.935 --> 00:45:26.783
they call the Last Frontier--

00:45:26.783 --> 00:45:29.543
900 miles along the frozen Yukon River.

00:45:30.539 --> 00:45:32.707
I started out in weather 40 below,

00:45:32.707 --> 00:45:34.715
hauling 160 pounds of sled--

00:45:34.715 --> 00:45:36.094
I filmed it for National Geographic

00:45:36.094 --> 00:45:38.691
and it wasn't until six months
after I finished the trip

00:45:38.691 --> 00:45:39.527
that they said, "Did you know?

00:45:39.527 --> 00:45:42.048
You're the first woman to
ever cross Alaska alone."

00:45:42.048 --> 00:45:42.897
I'm like, "I am?"

00:45:44.525 --> 00:45:47.053
- That was in 1994.

00:45:47.053 --> 00:45:48.501
A decade and a half later,

00:45:48.501 --> 00:45:50.399
after returning to Nevada City,

00:45:50.399 --> 00:45:52.820
Reinette took another bold step.

00:45:53.906 --> 00:45:56.803
- So I decided to run for
Nevada City city council

00:45:56.803 --> 00:45:59.650
and I went door-to-door, 1200 doors.

00:45:59.650 --> 00:46:01.249
- Personable and articulate,

00:46:01.249 --> 00:46:02.827
she won easily.

00:46:02.827 --> 00:46:05.344
At first, she focused on solar power

00:46:05.344 --> 00:46:07.902
and other sustainability projects.

00:46:07.902 --> 00:46:10.789
But later, as mayor, she
turned to the problems

00:46:10.789 --> 00:46:13.516
of homelessness, building
on earlier efforts

00:46:13.516 --> 00:46:16.683
led by Hospitality
House, a local non-profit

00:46:16.683 --> 00:46:20.449
started by popular folk
singer Utah Phillips.

00:46:20.449 --> 00:46:22.617
- I think we attract a
lot of homeless people--

00:46:22.617 --> 00:46:24.455
first of all because we're
a charming community,

00:46:24.455 --> 00:46:26.633
and also we take good care of people.

00:46:26.633 --> 00:46:27.902
Unless you've been homeless,

00:46:27.902 --> 00:46:29.660
you have absolutely no
idea how difficult it is

00:46:29.660 --> 00:46:32.377
to pull yourself back out of that hole.

00:46:32.377 --> 00:46:33.566
It's extraordinarily difficult--

00:46:33.566 --> 00:46:35.834
no phone, no address, no way to shower,

00:46:35.834 --> 00:46:37.272
no way to wash your clothes.

00:46:37.272 --> 00:46:39.600
You're malnourished, probably starving.

00:46:39.600 --> 00:46:40.849
It's brutal.

00:46:40.849 --> 00:46:42.118
It's brutal.

00:46:42.118 --> 00:46:43.670
And no town should allow this.

00:46:43.670 --> 00:46:46.933
Every single town should be
taking care of their homeless.

00:46:46.933 --> 00:46:49.893
- We need to find new jobs here

00:46:49.893 --> 00:46:52.277
that can allow younger people

00:46:52.277 --> 00:46:54.398
to make a living and raise their families.

00:46:56.054 --> 00:46:59.121
- The old guard here had one thing left

00:46:59.121 --> 00:47:00.969
that was really a vital industry,

00:47:00.969 --> 00:47:04.798
and that was land
subdivision and development.

00:47:07.412 --> 00:47:10.419
- Now, a new industry is emerging.

00:47:10.419 --> 00:47:12.957
- What we're seeing now
on a Thursday, Friday

00:47:12.957 --> 00:47:14.785
or Saturday night in Nevada City,

00:47:14.785 --> 00:47:16.733
there's no place to park.

00:47:16.733 --> 00:47:19.121
The streets are covered with well-dressed

00:47:19.121 --> 00:47:20.769
young people with money to spend.

00:47:23.416 --> 00:47:25.824
- Offering both promise and peril,

00:47:25.824 --> 00:47:27.982
this humble plant may be California's

00:47:27.982 --> 00:47:30.309
newest version of gold.

00:47:30.309 --> 00:47:32.158
- This one I don't
think I would thin much.

00:47:32.158 --> 00:47:34.835
You know, you could do some
thinning on the north side.

00:47:34.835 --> 00:47:37.942
- In 2016, California voters legalized

00:47:37.942 --> 00:47:40.439
the sale of recreational marijuana.

00:47:40.439 --> 00:47:43.326
- We need to help them understand
it's not a scary thing.

00:47:43.326 --> 00:47:45.964
It doesn't stink, it doesn't hurt you,

00:47:45.964 --> 00:47:48.541
it doesn't bring gangsters.

00:47:48.541 --> 00:47:50.812
It is, in fact, a healing plant.

00:47:52.190 --> 00:47:54.175
It benefits the end users.

00:47:54.175 --> 00:47:56.693
It benefits the people who work with it.

00:47:56.693 --> 00:47:58.751
- Properly regulated and taxed,

00:47:58.751 --> 00:48:02.157
it could be the answer to
the area's employment woes.

00:48:02.157 --> 00:48:04.955
- In Nevada County, if
you ask the sheriff,

00:48:04.955 --> 00:48:07.466
there's a couple thousand gardeners.

00:48:07.466 --> 00:48:10.409
I think that's probably a
conservative estimate, actually.

00:48:10.409 --> 00:48:13.166
I think it's a huge part of
the economy in this county

00:48:13.166 --> 00:48:15.934
because there's not
really much else going on.

00:48:15.934 --> 00:48:18.122
It's one of the reasons that I think that

00:48:18.122 --> 00:48:21.089
reasonable regulation at the local level,

00:48:21.089 --> 00:48:22.867
as well as the state level,

00:48:22.867 --> 00:48:26.313
is a really important work

00:48:26.313 --> 00:48:28.082
that needs to be done.

00:48:28.082 --> 00:48:29.550
What we really love is the whole

00:48:29.550 --> 00:48:31.558
distribution of the leaves

00:48:31.558 --> 00:48:35.474
and the way they hold themselves so erect

00:48:35.474 --> 00:48:38.231
and the quantity of them-- the number.

00:48:38.231 --> 00:48:39.930
- Wade Laughter has been growing

00:48:39.930 --> 00:48:42.727
medicinal marijuana for many years.

00:48:42.727 --> 00:48:44.765
He raises his crop organically,

00:48:44.765 --> 00:48:47.992
fighting pests and disease
by building up the soil

00:48:47.992 --> 00:48:50.242
and giving the plants room to flourish.

00:48:53.386 --> 00:48:55.164
- To me, the most important aspect

00:48:55.164 --> 00:48:57.312
of sustainable cannabis cultivation

00:48:57.312 --> 00:48:59.860
has to do with respect
for the environment.

00:48:59.860 --> 00:49:02.697
I call it free-range cannabis.

00:49:02.697 --> 00:49:04.965
If you take cows and put
a whole bunch of them

00:49:04.965 --> 00:49:07.092
in a parking lot and
feed 'em the wrong feed

00:49:07.092 --> 00:49:09.340
and keep them there for
weeks and months at a time

00:49:09.340 --> 00:49:13.146
so they just get fat, all
kinds of pests and diseases,

00:49:13.146 --> 00:49:14.628
and meantime the stench--

00:49:16.034 --> 00:49:18.291
and that's factory farming.

00:49:18.291 --> 00:49:20.799
And I think one of the things
that cannabis cultivators

00:49:20.799 --> 00:49:24.633
are gonna have to learn is
how to bring the mindset,

00:49:24.633 --> 00:49:29.137
if you will, of free-range
farming to cannabis.

00:49:29.680 --> 00:49:31.931
We can't be factory farming anymore.

00:49:34.945 --> 00:49:36.034
- At its worst,

00:49:36.034 --> 00:49:38.191
highly lucrative marijuana production

00:49:38.191 --> 00:49:40.033
resembles hydraulic mining.

00:49:41.258 --> 00:49:43.956
- They're planting their crops

00:49:43.956 --> 00:49:45.464
on the National Forest.

00:49:45.464 --> 00:49:49.890
They are putting in piping into the rivers

00:49:49.890 --> 00:49:52.397
and streams that flow
on the National Forest

00:49:52.397 --> 00:49:54.115
to water their crops.

00:49:54.115 --> 00:49:56.926
They are using illegal pesticides.

00:49:58.241 --> 00:50:01.808
- We had seven that we
located and eradicated.

00:50:01.808 --> 00:50:04.495
- Tahoe Forest Supervisor Eli Ilano

00:50:04.495 --> 00:50:06.463
sometimes feels like he's in a war zone.

00:50:06.463 --> 00:50:08.321
- You think there are more
that we haven't found?

00:50:08.321 --> 00:50:10.199
- I think it's quite possible.

00:50:10.199 --> 00:50:12.697
- They are armed this year.

00:50:13.046 --> 00:50:18.041
We raided an illegal
marijuana farm on the forest.

00:50:18.551 --> 00:50:21.298
They had 18,000 plants.

00:50:21.298 --> 00:50:23.966
That's acres of land that is now polluted

00:50:23.966 --> 00:50:27.172
with illegal chemicals, toxic chemicals,

00:50:27.172 --> 00:50:30.619
neurochemicals that have permanent

00:50:30.619 --> 00:50:32.957
neurological effects to human beings

00:50:32.957 --> 00:50:35.464
if they'd come into contact with them.

00:50:35.464 --> 00:50:39.790
The idea that growing marijuana is somehow

00:50:39.790 --> 00:50:44.452
a "green crop," in the
environmental sense, is false.

00:50:46.153 --> 00:50:50.249
It can be farmed in a sustainable manner

00:50:50.249 --> 00:50:52.080
but not on the National Forest.

00:50:54.287 --> 00:50:56.593
And it has to be done very thoughtfully

00:50:58.356 --> 00:51:00.232
and in the right place.

00:51:01.848 --> 00:51:04.235
- I'd love to see it kept fairly small

00:51:04.235 --> 00:51:05.914
like a cottage industry.

00:51:05.914 --> 00:51:09.660
I want careful, controlled, small grows,

00:51:09.660 --> 00:51:12.607
I want good environmental regulations.

00:51:12.607 --> 00:51:14.725
We wanna bring money in from it.

00:51:14.725 --> 00:51:16.733
Some of our organic farmers up here

00:51:16.733 --> 00:51:19.280
can barely make it or can't quite make it,

00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:20.889
but if they are able to also grow

00:51:20.889 --> 00:51:24.745
some cannabis on the side that might help

00:51:24.745 --> 00:51:27.433
make them more viable.

00:51:27.433 --> 00:51:28.708
- Will it?

00:51:28.708 --> 00:51:30.735
Only the future will tell.

00:51:30.735 --> 00:51:33.315
[mellow music]

00:51:39.080 --> 00:51:42.577
In January, Nevada City
teems with visitors

00:51:42.577 --> 00:51:44.685
drawn by SYRCL's annual fundraiser

00:51:44.685 --> 00:51:46.373
and most visible activity.

00:51:46.373 --> 00:51:49.150
- It's a festival for
filmmakers and activists.

00:51:49.150 --> 00:51:50.709
- The tagline for the film festival

00:51:50.709 --> 00:51:52.307
is "Where Activism Gets Inspired,"

00:51:52.307 --> 00:51:54.505
and these films really
do change your world.

00:51:55.775 --> 00:51:58.355
[upbeat music]

00:52:00.599 --> 00:52:03.549
- Welcome to the Wild
and Scenic Film Festival.

00:52:05.904 --> 00:52:08.751
It's one of America's most
successful celebrations

00:52:08.751 --> 00:52:10.392
of environmental media.

00:52:11.858 --> 00:52:14.305
- It's a boost to our local economy

00:52:14.305 --> 00:52:16.203
in what's traditionally
a slow time of year

00:52:16.203 --> 00:52:17.951
because we're bringing
in thousands of people

00:52:17.951 --> 00:52:19.510
from out of town into our community,

00:52:19.510 --> 00:52:21.108
and it's an influx of dollars

00:52:21.108 --> 00:52:23.246
that wouldn't otherwise be here.

00:52:23.246 --> 00:52:25.634
- Venues in Nevada City and Grass Valley

00:52:25.634 --> 00:52:28.601
offer about 140 films each year,

00:52:28.601 --> 00:52:30.958
including special programs for children.

00:52:30.958 --> 00:52:34.185
- All of the films were
really amazing this year.

00:52:34.185 --> 00:52:36.663
- But films aren't all of it.

00:52:36.663 --> 00:52:39.750
Renowned local authors
like Jordan Fisher Smith

00:52:39.750 --> 00:52:41.158
read from their works.

00:52:41.158 --> 00:52:43.898
- I have never, never,
never spoken in a bar.

00:52:44.825 --> 00:52:45.664
[laughing]

00:52:45.664 --> 00:52:48.393
But let me tell you,
it is a dream come true

00:52:48.393 --> 00:52:49.530
[laughing]

00:52:49.530 --> 00:52:54.085
because it combines a couple
of my great enthusiasms--

00:52:54.085 --> 00:52:55.805
literature and alcohol.

00:52:55.981 --> 00:52:57.219
[laughing]

00:52:57.219 --> 00:52:59.389
- Others-- including Gary Snyder,

00:52:59.389 --> 00:53:03.298
an honored guest at the
2017 festival-- sign theirs.

00:53:03.298 --> 00:53:04.440
- Now what year was that, Roger?

00:53:04.440 --> 00:53:08.232
- That was in the late '80s,
like '87, something like that.

00:53:10.610 --> 00:53:13.218
- Local artists display their wares,

00:53:13.218 --> 00:53:14.540
[cheering]

00:53:14.540 --> 00:53:16.950
while SYRCL activists and visitors alike

00:53:16.950 --> 00:53:19.555
share wine and good conversation.

00:53:19.555 --> 00:53:22.137
[mellow music]

00:53:23.570 --> 00:53:25.389
- So it's really a meeting place

00:53:25.389 --> 00:53:26.910
for folks who are interested

00:53:26.910 --> 00:53:28.590
in furthering the environmental movement

00:53:28.590 --> 00:53:30.660
and figuring out what
can we do to make change,

00:53:30.660 --> 00:53:33.182
how can we work together
to better the world.

00:53:34.119 --> 00:53:37.379
We rely on volunteers to make it happen.

00:53:37.379 --> 00:53:39.059
The film festival alone uses

00:53:39.059 --> 00:53:41.349
more than 700 volunteers each year.

00:53:41.349 --> 00:53:44.860
Every year, we end up with a
waiting list of volunteers.

00:53:44.860 --> 00:53:46.690
- Awareness to environmental issues--

00:53:46.690 --> 00:53:48.840
- Award winners walk away with a stone

00:53:48.840 --> 00:53:50.149
from the Yuba River.

00:53:50.149 --> 00:53:53.510
- The film really shows
that no one on this planet,

00:53:53.510 --> 00:53:56.660
no matter how remote,
is immune to the impacts

00:53:56.660 --> 00:53:58.580
of ocean pollution.

00:53:58.580 --> 00:54:01.620
- So we'd really like to
round out into all 50 states.

00:54:01.620 --> 00:54:03.900
- And many of the most popular films

00:54:03.900 --> 00:54:06.610
are packaged and provided
to other communities

00:54:06.610 --> 00:54:08.440
to hold their own festivals.

00:54:08.440 --> 00:54:09.940
- And then we just hit San Francisco

00:54:09.940 --> 00:54:11.770
but New York City would be awesome.

00:54:11.770 --> 00:54:15.700
- We reach over 40,000 people
every year with these films.

00:54:15.700 --> 00:54:18.690
We are predominantly in
North America, but we do have

00:54:18.690 --> 00:54:20.513
some international events as well.

00:54:21.389 --> 00:54:24.980
- In all, 165 cities worldwide,

00:54:24.980 --> 00:54:27.720
including Berlin and Shanghai,

00:54:27.720 --> 00:54:30.750
have used films provided by SYRCL.

00:54:30.750 --> 00:54:32.530
It's quite an accomplishment

00:54:32.530 --> 00:54:34.650
for a town of 3,000 people.

00:54:34.650 --> 00:54:36.730
- These types of communities
are really hard to come by

00:54:36.730 --> 00:54:38.349
and that's one reason why I'm so involved,

00:54:38.349 --> 00:54:40.710
because I wanna fight for
it, I wanna keep it alive--

00:54:40.710 --> 00:54:42.510
and that is actually a daily battle.

00:54:43.640 --> 00:54:45.430
- Recently, Sunset magazine

00:54:45.430 --> 00:54:47.800
featured Nevada City on its cover

00:54:47.800 --> 00:54:49.660
as one of the best places to live

00:54:49.660 --> 00:54:51.600
in the western United States.

00:54:51.600 --> 00:54:55.179
But this town wants to
be a model for others,

00:54:55.179 --> 00:54:57.590
not a beacon for new residents.

00:54:57.590 --> 00:55:01.519
What started in Nevada
City need not stay here.

00:55:01.519 --> 00:55:04.101
[upbeat music]

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- People protect what they love

00:55:08.020 --> 00:55:09.900
and they love what they know.

00:55:09.900 --> 00:55:13.753
And so, I'm all for
protecting your own backyard.

00:55:15.099 --> 00:55:17.750
That's how we save the world,
one backyard at a time.

00:55:18.650 --> 00:55:21.349
- It really comes down to our priorities.

00:55:21.349 --> 00:55:24.139
Is gold valuable?

00:55:24.139 --> 00:55:28.740
Is power valuable?

00:55:28.740 --> 00:55:33.069
Or, is the air we breathe valuable?

00:55:33.069 --> 00:55:35.362
Is water valuable?

00:55:36.810 --> 00:55:39.840
- Community stewardship
can happen anywhere.

00:55:39.840 --> 00:55:42.560
It just comes from loving a place enough

00:55:42.560 --> 00:55:43.733
to take care of it.

00:55:44.999 --> 00:55:47.582
[upbeat music]

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[upbeat string music]