Listen to or download stories of life on Santa Cruz Island as told by various island residents and visitors. Please note that these are audio files only.
Delphine Care 1880s, daughter of Justinian Care, a former owner of Santa Cruz Island. This is an account of Delphine Cares. First visit to Santa Cruz Island in 1880.
When circumstances brought my father, Justinian care ownership of a considerable number of shares of stock in the Santa Cruz Island Company, he wished to inform himself of the situation and by actual inspection of the site, ascertain if changes were called for in the operation of this rural domain. In 1880, he decided to go there and to take Arthur, my brother and me. To get to Scorpion Anchorage from the main ranch in 1880, it was necessary to ride a horse over an extremely rough trail and occasionally over ground, devoid of any trail, the carriage deposited, the two of us at a place called Campo de Manquero, and now I wonder how we ever reached the spot without accident a short distance beyond the Rancho del Sur. There was no wagon Rd. and the grading of the mountain we were climbing was such that our vehicle could easily have tipped over. A horseman travelling high above us in short, against the vehicle swerving by means of a stout belt strapped to our carriage, the end of which was wound around the pommel of his saddle. I'm convinced that it was not our Californian sturdy strap, but the ordering of a benevolent Providence that saved us 1000 times from what Italians would have called a magnificent. Taping tombolo for had we overturned heads would first have hit the ground.
Delphine Caire, with father Justinian, around 1880s
Eunice Felton, from Santa Barbara, wrote an account in her diary of her experience camping on Santa Cruz Island at Cueva Valdez about 1890.
After our first raptures had subsided, we set about raising the tents and preparing camp. The desire for food was not slow to make itself felt, and we now discovered to our dismay, that an unknown individual who taken passage with us but had kept silence because of seasickness was not a cook as we had supposed him to be. We found also that there were no cooking utensils. As night came on, the wild influence of nature, the barking of the sea lions and the dashing of the waves on the beach impressed us with a great sense of the remoteness and solitude of the place. But there was a wonderful beauty in the scene as both the sea and shore were lighted by the moon, which was hidden from us by the overhanging. Towering cracks.
Margaret Eaton 1920, former Santa Cruz Island resident for almost 30 years, Margaret Eaton lived with her husband and daughter on Santa Cruz Island beginning in 1908, first in fishing camps and later running a resort at Pelican Bay. During the 1920s and 30s.
About once a month, the company schooner the Santa Cruz came down from prisoners harbor to bring a new supply of wine and groceries to Scorpion Ranch. There would be 5 or 6 barrels of wine, many boxes of macaroni, sacks of flu. More and grain for the horses. The freight was unloaded onto a pontoon and a heavy rope ran from the schooner to a dead man on the beach. The ranch hands would unload the supplies into a low sled with iron runners underneath the. Usually arrived around noon and Ira always invited the captain and crew up to our kitchen to have a. Bite to. Eat. Usually it was crawfish pipino. They would tell us all the news of any importance from town.
Red Crane was a skipper of the island schooner Santa Cruz and talked about his island experiences in the 1940s.
And when the cares owned it, they had a cook over there who been with them for 16 years. The guy by the name of Hercules, Pico. And you knew what you were going to eat every meal that you sat down at the table 365 days a year with him. He baked wonderful sourdough bread. He was actually a Baker by trade. You got in the morning, mutton chops and boiled beans and that bread and coffee at noon. You got stuck. No, no, no, no. Wait a minute. At noon you got roast mutton and beans and bread and coffee. At night you got Stew. And beans and coffee. Other than that, once in a while on Sunday morning, if he felt good-natured, he would. Make hot cakes.
My name is Julie to Mamaya Stansley Nash descendant. My relatives were born out on both Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Island. My great grandfather gave us our name to Mamat and it was said to have meant an orphan. One who was raised by his grandparents and learned to carry things on his back. His grandparents were from Santa Cruz Island. Shahil was one of the biggest villages there on the on the eastern part of the island.
Sure.
There were people. There living off the resources in a in a very gentle, easy way that allowed the island to regenerate itself, and they revered the island. So I can imagine my ancestors who were living on the mainland going over on the Tomball and. In those days, it took a long time of days, probably more a day, at least to go over there on a good on a good paddling day, you were welcomed, probably with some welcome songs. You were fed abalone jerky. Probably some lobsters, a very beautiful place to greet you and to welcome you to be here. And you brought things from the mainland over to trade. Many of my relatives and people that I know have not visited the islands, but they look at them and they know that we are descendants from the islands. But the ones who have ventured over are exhilarated and almost like a homecoming. For some, a very spiritual experience. To if you know if they get a glimpse of the island fox or you know any of the native animals out there, then they're really very touched by having that experience of. Being on this ancient land, my children come with me when I do many programs and they do hear about our relatives who are from these different village names. We sing songs from the islands. We tell the stories from the islands as they grow up. I hope that they can keep up with me and be able to understand how important it is to have a voice with the islands to know the plants and to help protect the land and and their culture. I think with the work that the national parks has done, myself being included in some of those activities and educational projects. That we see the restoration of the islands and the protection of the cultural resources we see the preservation of our culture in terms of its physical presence, but we can also know that for future generations our children will be able to go and see the islands in a natural way and. To hold on to and keep the stories of our ancestors.
My name is John Guarini and I'm the great great grandson of Justinian. Care who owned the entire island of Santa Cruz in the 1880s. My grandparents Ambro and Maria Guarini,acquired the East End of the island in 1926. The Guarini family operated a sheep ranch on the eastern 6200 acres of Santa Cruz Island. From 1926 until 1984, for these 58 years, the Greenie family continued the arduous task of herding, shearing, docking, separating and transporting sheep and wool to the markets on the main. Plan while our family lived in Santa Barbara, we spent many weekends and summer months working on the island. Well, I first started going over to the island, probably in the 1950s. Maybe I was six or seven years old, and I can remember on days of the roundup that I was too small to go on the roundup. So one of my primary jobs is was to help the cook. Grind coffee at 4:00 in the morning and do chores around the ranch well. The riders were out on the the roundup, but as we grew older, of course we soon found ourselves on the roundup we found ourselves building fences and. Helping with chores and being involved in the the sharing process, not actually sharing, but sacking the wool and separating the flock and then helping repair fences. Well, there were a couple memorable trips, but on either the NATCO, which is a boat that we had until 1959, or on the Hodge, it would take about 2 1/2 hours, 3 hours from Santa Barbara to to Scorpion Harbor and. Trips could be very rough, particularly going back because of the prevailing northwest winds, but certainly on 2 occasion I was on the NATCO when it almost sank. We were three or four miles off of Scorpion with a lot of heavy Caterpillar part. And the NATCO, which is was a 42 foot salmon trawler really that's what it was designed for, started taking on a lot of water and the Coast Guard had. To come out and. Get us and they actually towed us back into Santa Barbara. The other incident was in 1976. Where I. Was. On the Hodge, so when we bought the boat in 1959, it was, you know, adapted for our needs because we could put a lot of supplies in the cargo hole and and it had good deck space for shipping maybe 400, four, 150 sheep when we did the the shipping. But in January of 1976, we were coming out of the harbor of Santa Barbara Harbor. And and the city was having trouble with the dredging of the harbor and the entrance to the harbor was very narrow and we hit the sandbar going out. I can remember distinctly that we pulled back off the sandbar and then we proceeded on our way. Once we were clear, the sandbar we were. Carrying about 16 or 1755 gallon drums of gasoline and diesel, and that was the purpose of the trip to take the the fuel out to the island. And maybe we had seven or eight people on board. And sowe're about 3 miles out of Santa Barbara Harbor, and my Uncle Francis he. He thought the engine was dragging. It didn't sound right to him, so he went down to the engine room and he came up and his first words to me were were sinking. And he said get everybody in the their life jackets, which we did, but it was pretty obvious our skiff that we tow off the stern when we go over the island wasn't big enough for. All the people. So he radioed, you know, Mayday to the Coast Guard, which I believe was run at that time, run through the Long Beach station. And the point Judith, fortunately, was at the harbor with their entire crews. The point Judith was Coast Guard vessel. About a 60 footer and it came out probably within about a 45 minutes to an hour by the time it came out, the water was deck level and while the the seas were fairly calm, you know 4 to 5 foot seas. With the water in the cargo hole, the dynamics of the Hodge changed to where there was doing a lot of. Rocking. And so that the captain that commanded the point, Judith, he was very good and he wanted to make sure that when we transferred the people from the Hodge to the Coast Guard that. They didn't get caught between the two vessels because that had been probably a serious injury. So when that was done he tried to tow the the Hodge back to Santa Barbara and that work. For he tried maybe for 1/2 hour and it was, the drag was just too great. And so he chopped the lines and then we saw the boat sink between beneath the seas. It was an adventure.
My name is David began, and I've been a frequent visitor to the park for over 20 years now. There are a lot of reasons why I keep coming back to the islands. There's so many fun things to do, like hiking, kayaking and diving, but it's the definitive isolation of the islands that makes them so alluring, even compared to other wild places I've been. It starts with the journey across the channel. Which is a transition from civilization and all that comes with it to a simpler place where things like keys and wallets that are so important on the mainland are meaningless. What matters here is not material, but more sensory the sights, sounds and smells, as well as the wonderment of being able to step back in time and take a break from the pressures and cares of the world. Yet all this is obtainable just an hours boat ride from the mainland. This feeling is most noticeable to me in the evening when I walked down to the Cove. And look across the sea to the lights of the mainland. I sit and think of all the activity and business over there, and yet here on Santa Cruz, I'm fulfilled by the smell of the ocean, the sound of the waves lapping against the shore and the sky above me, full of stars. As I sit, I think of those who have come here before me over thousands of years, whose experiences would have been so much the same. And I'm content. When I journey back across the channel and transition to my daily routine, I bring these feelings and experiences back with me. The perspective I gain from the simplicity of my island time helps me deal better with the complexity of life on the mainland, and that's why I keep coming back to the Channel Islands.
My name is Luis Cuevas. I'm a park Ranger and I am currently the Santa Cruz Island Ranger. I work primarily at Scorpion on the East End of Santa Cruz Island. My father was the foreman on the cattle ranch on Santa Rosa Island. I had the incredible opportunity of growing up on the island, spending full time till I was about. Years old. And then after that, I'm spending most of my summers on the island. Once we left, I realized how unique that was. The the the term solitude doesn't even describe it, which which is something that's very positive actually. To me, solitude is an incredible resource. You cannot find a beach and just walk for miles or stay out for hours. And it was. Just.
It was pretty.
Exceptional because you can't really find that. Today and you can't find that in a lot of areas, I think that to me is one of the most important resources that's out there is the ability to actually feel a sense of solitude and and just really being away from people in the city and everything. One of the reasons I wanted to come back was I wanted to have some part in preserving the islands and we have had some people that get jobs out here and they come out here and the isolation is a little more than they're used to because in on some of the islands like Anacapa or Santa Barbara Island, you don't have that opportunity to go out and hike. Miles, you're there and you're out there for a week and. If you have a computer and a television that gets some people through, but a lot of people just. Can't. Can't handle being just out there. They can't just get in their car and go to a movie. So I think it does take a very, you know somebody that's that that really likes that sense of solitude, I guess or isolation. My position is is based on Santa Cruz Island. So I work out there for seven days or actually 8 days on the island and then I have the rest of the time at headquarters. So we actually do get a sense of. Of getting away.
One of the nice things about the job here at this park, because this is a small park and because of how the islands are set up, this job tends to be more of a traditional park Ranger position where you do, you do everything you. You directly greet the visitors and talk to them and give them an. Orientation. And give them. Natural History information you clean bathrooms. Sometimes you are the only person working out there, and so you have to go out and pick up the trash. Check in campers, clean food storage boxes. So that's actually one of the nice things about this position is you get to do really everything. From. Writing tickets to illegal fishermen to cleaning bathrooms. Every part I've worked in has been different, but yeah here. The biggest difference is it seems like it's it's very one-on-one, there's often times it's just you and several visitors. It's very. Very personal. It seems really much more one-on-one. You actually get to know your visitors because when they camp there, you're seeing them every day. You're contacting them throughout the day, you run into them on the trails. There have been lots of times when I'm the only person out there, no visitors, no boats. Yeah, it's it's pretty neat because it's actually pretty easy for boats to get cancelled. So even though there be a trip planned to bring public. Out there it can get. Cancelled if the seas are rough. So it's like, oh, well, we get the call Highland Packers cancelled today. Ohh darn. Guess I will go hiking today. Now my first few my first few weeks after I came back, you know, and I was actually wandering around on duty thinking, Oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm here. I'm back here, I'm hiking around and I'm being paid. I'm on duty over here. That's pretty cool.
