California taxpayers probably paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a slick half-hour ad on NBC Bay Area Sunday night. It was quite the propaganda coup, although we doubt many people actually watch “OpenRoads with Doug McConnell.”
The Trail’s grandiosity was underscored by the contrast between the two principle presenters, the fairly fit Mr. McConnell and the contrasting unfit Elaine Hogan who doesn’t exactly come across as a poster woman for outdoor fitness that the Great Redwood Trail that she’s the point person for.
The show was paid for by the Great Redwood Trail organization (and a few associated parks and trails organizations) according to their funding list at the end of the ad, but, curiously, they never mentioned actual dollar amounts for either the “Trail” or the ad.
McConnell and Hogan were filmed cheerfully “biking” along a couple of short segments of the trail between Arcata and Eureka where, we were told, “500 people a day” use the trail. But the visuals contradicted the stat because, besides McConnell and Hogan, there were only one or two other hikers/bikers on the trail during the filming.
Of course, because it was a paid ad, there was the expected gross simplification of the Trail project which “will stretch for 307 miles from San Francisco to Arcata.”
Viewers were told of all the wonderful stuff that will accompany the Trail: Exhibitions! Interpretive signage! Museums! Native American tributes! Bike rentals! River raft rentals! Birding! (There were no birds during the filming which the narrator said was because it was a windy day (?).) Viewers were also told that the Trail “will revitalize the economy of the entire region” and bring jobs!
A nature conservation non-profit called the “Wildlands Conservancy” has purchased 18.5 miles of Eel River Canyon (price and source of funding not mentioned, of course) and chirpy reps from that organization were interviewed with more giddy wild promises about the trail with vague phrases like “when the Great Redwood Trail is finished…” They at least acknowledged that the Eel River Canyon itself is “very remote,” and “only a few people will venture into it,” as they rafted down their “one little part” of the river and pointed up to the inaccessible collapsing old tracks where the Trail is proposed to run someday.
The entire half hour was accompanied by the familiar KZYX-style hum&strum that is supposed to evoke the back country but has become trite and a symbol of pot smoking neo-hippies and silliness nowadays.
Besdies McConnell’s NBC crew which filmed the very abbreviated bike riding and river rafting segments, all the dramatic photos and aeriel film of the nearly inaccessible Eel River Canyon were provided by the oh-so helpful Great Redwood Trail staff.
As the chuckling rafters floated down the relatively calm (during the filming anyway) and “very remote” Eel, we couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if something went wrong. A raft capsizes, an injury occurs, a medical emergency arisis, an accident, a missing person or child, a drug episode, lightning, escaped campfires, a crime…
Funny, there was no mention of any of that kind of thing.
And there certainly wasn’t any mention of the many criticisms and complaints from critics and neighboring property owners.
They never made it to the five mile Ukiah segment of the Trail from the shiny metal buildings north of Ukiah to the scenic sewage treatment plant on the south, Supervisor Maureen Mulheren’s own home-segment. Perhaps that will covered in an upcoming ad.
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