Away in the Valley
A Story of Family, Stewardship and Community
The Movement That Started a Revolution
Back to the Landers
From the mid-60’s to mid-80’s there was a movement to escape the trappings of the city and seek refuge in the wilderness of Northern California. The allure of cheap, timber-stripped land in the rural parts of the county became the first sites for the new wave of life- style, the
“Back to the Landers.”
Poor timber and cattle practices during the previous century had left unstable, eroded hillsides and damaged watersheds and many new landowners harbored a genuine sense of stewardship and conservation.
It was here that members of the emerging counterculture strove to make a new life for themselves based on self-sufficiency and respect for the natural environment. These were people who were “dropping out” of the rat-race in favor of a more sustainable lifestyle.
This movement was first facilitated, almost singlehandedly by a landowner in the Humboldt area who sold his land to retirees and welfare recipients moving back to the land, former Berkeley and Harvard professors for whatever price they were comfortable paying, oftentimes with no money down. That man was Robert McKee, grandfather of Whitethorn Valley Farm owner Galen Doherty. He was seen as the “Gandalf ” of the Back to the Land movement and earned a reputation for his propensity of sub-dividing land, both with counterculturists, and the county.
Cannabis was just one of the other crops in these community farms. Families lived without the desire for money and material goods, and instead strove to revive the land stripped by the timber industry.
Uncle John & Cousin Aaron
(Circa 1960)
This was a lifestyle in which if you couldn’t make it yourself, you did without. This necessity for fundamental structures created a community that built schools, roads and services, all largely funded by the underground cannabis economy.
Out of their efforts came community centers, volunteer fire departments, and slew of non-profit organizations dedicated to environmental protection and restoration, as well as the local KMUD radio station—whose live broadcasts would, among other things, would announce the convoys of law enforcement and later national guard, who had come to crack down on the illicit marijuana industry burgeoning in the hills of southern Humboldt County.
It was this community who, despite the written law repatriated cannabis into the American staple crop it had been at the dawn of the nation.
Their legacy has survived systematic terrorization and marginalization during the “War on Drugs.” It is what fueled the beginning of the 215 era and supplied medical cannabis patients during one of the world’s largest public health crises.
Cannabis funded their way of life, but as the price of the plant rose in the market it also invited nefarious characters to the hillside and different factions of grows began to spring up throughout the late 1980’s and 90’s. Motivated by money, many new “farmers” did not have a care for protecting nature, and pillaged the land for their own profit.
Without people like Robert McKee, and largely, Robert himself, the counterculture movement which brought cannabis to the hills of Humboldt County would not have come about.
The butterfly effect of past actions is easier to see in hindsight. Tracing back the ripples to the source of the now wave of cannabis industry we see today.
Both counterculturists and “green-baggers” alike make up the history of cannabis in Humboldt county, and it is the regulated farms like Whitethorn Valley Farm that now take up the mantle of land stewardship again to right the unintended consequences of sub-diving land while embodying the virtues which brought people to the land in the first place.
Four generations later, Galen would find himself sowing the same soil that had once been worked by his family before him, only this time, the plants were the subject of an outright war.
It was now the fall of 2016, and the reclaimed homestead had been left in a sorry state. Numerous outbuildings were falling into disrepair and overgrown vegetation enveloped what were once large open meadows. The fruit trees planted by John and Sally (Galen’s Great Aunt and Uncle) had well overgrown their last pruning. The homestead’s twenty-five acres spanned both sides of Buck Creek, which flows year round thanks to the ponds Grandpa Bob had built in the late 60’s. Several grassy meadows sprawled on either side of the creek, bordered by a diversity of local flora. Underneath the surface, the soil was rich and dark, fertile from the ancient deposits of silts when the creek had first carved this valley.
Galen and his soon to be wife Ruby were young and energetic, (it was before the first kiddo). Throwing themselves into the work of restoring the homestead, Ruby brought order back to a garden gone wild with roses, honeysuckle, blackberry and other voracious creepy-crawly, thorny, impossible-to-kill plants. Time wasn’t exactly on their side though, with only four months to get the farm turned around and ready to plant their first legal crop before the season would leave them behind.
It was important to them to preserve the natural flora and fauna of the area. A stark contrast from the industrialists before them, Galen and Ruby felt that it was necessary to be stewards of the land they lived off of rather than pure profiteers. At this time in the history of the hills, there was another war being waged on nature. This time, not by the government but by private logging companies.
The Sanctuary Forest is a local non-profit that, at the time Whitethorn Valley Farm was just emerging like a new shoot, they were negotiating one of the biggest land trusts in history, and where Galen kept his day job in order to financially juggle the logistics of starting a permitted cannabis farm.
At this moment, they were in the midst of one of the biggest land conservation deals the Forest had ever done- spearheading an effort to protect the Van Arken Creek watershed, over 1300 acres of important habitat for fish and wildlife that was threatened by clear-cut logging and subdivision and development. On the weekends, he split his time between helping with the farm work, and taking on the seemingly insurmountable task of obtaining the necessary permits for a cannabis cultivation license.
A New Market
Honoring the Past with Present Practice
Fast forward to today, two kiddos later, and we’ve entered a whole new market, again. Whitethorn Valley Farm is still proud to be a family-owned, family-operated licensed cannabis farm in the heart of Humboldt County, California.
We use regenerative, closed loop practices to produce top-shelf, sun grown flower. Our cultivars have been passed down for generations, with lineage tracing back to the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan.
Our first responsibility is to the environment that nourishes our body and spirit. It is this stewardship ethos that guides how we raise our children, and how we treat the land.
We use a closed loop system on our farm in order to best utilize the resources that we have available to us. This is one of the main principals of Regenerative Agriculture. In this methodology, we implement farming practices such as Lunar Planting, Integrated Pest Management, water conservation, and organic growing practices. Here’s a more in-depth look at each of those practices.
Lunar Planting: The gravitational force between the sun and the moon move the water on earth during the different moon cycles. We see this most notably in the tides of the ocean but it also impacts the water in the ground as well as how much water plants can take up. We plant and harvest during the full moon so our plants are in tune with the lunar cycles.
IPM Hedgerows: We establish perennial flower and herb beds in strategic locations around the farm to create more habitats for our beneficial predatory insects and pollinators. Diversity is key in our hedgerows, we grow perennials such as Cosmos, Zinias, Marigolds, Tithonia, Sunflower, Sweet Peas, Statice, Straw Flower, Calendula, Bachelor Buttons, and more for medicinal ointments, and tinctures.
Water Conservation: Our farm is bisected by the beautiful Buck Creek which we divert water from during high-flow season. We work closely with conservation group, Sanctuary Forest, to monitor river levels on the Mattole River. When the river levels are low, we stop any diversion and use stored water from the rainy winter months to supply our farm during the summer. In this way we can responsibly manage our water impact and our impact in the surrounding environment.
Organic Growing Practices: We use locally sourced “inputs” (anything you put into the garden) and OMRI listed inputs (Organic Materials Review Institute) to improve soil health and fertility.
We think it’s important to know how and where your cannabis is grown. If you’re curious to know more, read about our growing practices, on our blog.
