Nancy Salcedo
Nancy Salcedo – Author, Naturalist
Nancy Salcedo is a perfect interview for this north/south edition of The Coastal Zone. She is a cool lady who has retained a strong sense of place while making homes both on the southern and northern coasts of California. Nancy grew up in Rolling Hills, CA atop the majestic Palos Verdes peninsula – an island amidst the sprawling basin lands of the greater Los Angeles area. Stemming from an interest in geography, Nancy studied Community Regional Planning in college. She also retained a lifelong interest in oceanography as well as in the natural history and human character of California – in all likelihood owing to the influences of her beautiful childhood homeland. Nancy’s sparkly voice and impenetrable good nature are immediately recognizable, and make her fun to hang out with. An accomplished author of California guidebooks, she has both self published and worked with established natural history publishers. We have been friends since her family’s Stinson Beach days, and we had this conversation from her home in central Marin at the foot of Mt. Tamalpais.
CZ: Tell me some impressions of where you grew up
NS: It was beautiful in Palos Verdes when I was a kid. It still is in areas. There are stands of original coastal scrub, deep canyons that all have water running in them, and a rugged rocky coastline that stands out from the typical sandy beach coastline to the north and south of Palos Verdes. A big landslide started there in the 1950’s in an area where there are layers of diatomaceous earth, so they weren’t able to build up all the subdivisions that were planned. It’s still unstable today, and really fun to explore.
I think there is a land trust at Palos Verdes now that works to preserve the open lands. The canyons are not developed, and there are trails to hike. My mom watched 45 generations of nesting Red-tailed hawks from home in Rolling Hills. The open space that is left is a little coastal haven amidst populated Southern California. It was a neat place to live as a kid.
CZ: Please comment on your impressions and the differences in northern and southern coastal California, and your experiences in both
NS: Nick and I bounced around between northern and southern California mostly due to changes in job locations, while he moved from a Planner for Mendocino County, to work for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the California Coastal Commission, and the Marin Municipal Water District. I love both parts of the State in different ways. Of course the climate is so fabulous and the water is so accessible in the south. It’s like the Channel Islands vs. the Farallon Islands – accessibility and inaccessibility – but both beautiful.
There are just so many people in Southern California.. you feel claustrophobic. It’s too hard to get out of town, and feel free of that. There are always traffic jams and people. We don’t have that as much in the north. I do miss Palos Verdes though, and always try to dream up a way to get back there!
We finally moved north to settle when our first child was little and there was a lot of urban turmoil going on in Huntington Beach where we were living. The beach was always the link for Nick and I – we wanted to live within two blocks of it wherever we ended up.
One north/south difference for me is the great accessible hiking in Marin and the Bay Area we always did. I missed that when we moved back south away from the Bay Area initially. In the early days up north we lived in Fort Bragg for awhile. Also, we were camp hosts at the Needleback House on the Lost Coast one fall. We just took a break from our lives between jobs and did it. It was amazing. There weren’t a lot of people the whole time we were there on the Lost Coast. We hiked a lot, and kept hours at the little visitors center. Bear Gulch was just about a mile down the road.
CZ: How did you get your start in writing?
NS: I was pregnant and wanted to pursue a career from home. I started writing because a research project appealed to me, and it just fell into place: writing a guidebook of all the microbreweries and brewpubs in California.
I thought microbreweries were the neatest idea, so Nick and I set out to visit every one of them. It was 1993 and the industry was just starting, so we only had 85 breweries to visit. It was a lot of fun – there was nothing corporate about it, and most breweries all knew about each other and were connected in some way. The originals from back then in Hopland and Booneville are still there, and they are legendary now!
Since I was pregnant Nick did all the tasting. The research took a little over a year. It’s called The Guzzlers Guide to California Beer, and I self published it. It worked out well.
CZ: Why did you choose non-fiction/guidebooks as opposed to writing fiction?
NS: God! I couldn’t imagine sitting in front of the blank slate and starting a piece of fiction. I enjoy research. They are two totally different things.
CZ: Please give me a rundown of your publications
NS: There was Guzzler’s Guide to California Beer in 1993, which I self published; Best Easy Day Hikes in the Bay Area, for Falcon Press in 1997; A Hiker’s Guide to California Native Places, for Wilderness Press in 1999; and I did several articles concerning wildlife watching and hiking in Northern California in various magazines, as well as a series on sightseeing by foot in the Bay Area for the Golden Gate Ferry publication, Bay Crossing.
I had a great time self publishing, and it was a mixed bag working with the restrictions of outside publishers/editors. My next fantasy project would be a family affair, involving my kids and Nick in some sort of writing project or publishing business.
CZ: I love all your work, and one of your books we use quite a bit is
A Hikers Guide to California Native Places. Tell me more about this project
NS: My kids were young and we wanted a book like this, but I couldn’t find any guide out there that covered this subject thoroughly. There was scattered information for visiting sites, but nothing cohesive. I was really excited about doing this project. My criteria for listing sites was to only include known, accessible, and interpreted sites that are physically protected by law. I didn’t want to cause any problems for the preservation of fragile or little known sites, or sites tribes were interested in keeping private. I also wanted to avoid the problems that would arise from voicing an opinion about the age or interpretation of a site – so I stuck with the known ones.
One part of this project I really enjoyed was learning more about the practical aspects of California Indian life. I loved learning about the uses of plants. I tried to include this information whenever I came across it.
CZ: What are some of your favorite sites from the book?
NS: Pine Valley in the Ventana Wilderness really appeals to me. There are petroglyphs, and you need a guide to go in there. The Channel Islands of course. Patrick’s Point in Humboldt County was amazing - the essence of Native California is still present all around there. There is a lot interpreted and re-created around that Park, and around most of the North Coast. The spirits are still up there.
The desert is like that too.. from the Mojave all the way through Palm Springs. It felt like you were back in the day. There are many well interpreted sites there. I also love the springtime Strawberry Festival that takes place at Kule Loklo at Point Reyes National Seashore. It’s definitely one of my favorites.
CZ: Please tell me some of your favorite hikes, or just spots to hang
out both on the north and south coasts
NS: That’s hard. Well, in the south the Channel Islands of course. It’s hard to pick which one. I would say Cuyler Cove on San Miguel Island is fabulous. There’s nothing like it.
In the north, the Farallon Islands are extraordinary. My son and I went whale watching there this summer, and even though we got seasick we really loved the drama of the islands. Probably my favorite place to hang out up north is Limantour Beach in Point Reyes National Seashore – heading south on that wild open beach on a hike with our dog, Bob, and the kids.
I’ve always been impressed with the Salcedo’s camping habits.
Even with teenagers, like clockwork they head out on annual excursions as
a family. Nancy recently emailed me to say they were camping for three days
just down the road from our towns at a favorite local streamside camp ground
(we all normally zoom past on our commutes), and that we should pop in for
barbeque dinner. Still within cell phone range, earshot of the local highway,
and minutes from home, they stayed and played for three whole days with no
temptation to get back to the t.v. They also frequent Yosemite Valley, Pinnacles
National Monument, and recently took an epic Vanagon trip from the SF Bay
Area to mid-Baja and back.
I hope Nancy keeps up the good work, and graces us with another publication and opportunity to learn more about our beautiful state. A Hikers Guide to California Native Places is a wonderful guide – easy to use with detailed maps, a system of symbols denoting important site features, and a great introduction covering geography, archeology, ethnography, mythology based on historic ecology, and words on sensitivity in approaching sacred and archeological sites. Here is a link to A Hiker’s Guide to California Native Places, as well as Nancy’s other books:
