Visible from the Long Beach and Orange County coast, depending on the weather, Santa Catalina Island is home to one town, Avalon, and a few dozen "buffalo", or American bison. Catalina has been exporting live bison to the Dakotas for 19 years, who knew?
In the 24 years I've lived in Southern California, I've made it out to Catalina Island one time. In 1997, I got hired to work on the stage crew of a John Tesh piano concert. While it was a cool trip, I worked 6 10 hour shifts in 4 days, so I didn't get much of a chance to wander the island. I did make it up to the Wrigley Mansion, now a hotel, on the top of a small mountain. John Tesh begins the PBS special show playing piano on the hotel's balcony. The view from up there is absolutely incredible.
As a SoCal main lander, I'd heard there were buffalo on Catalina for some reason, and that was confirmed by a man we worked with over there at the show. He was a descendant of the native tribe on the island, the Tongva, called Gabrielinos by the Spanish missionaries. He told us a bit about the island on breaks and at lunch. The Tongva go back at least 8,000 or more years, living on Catalina Island.
Until watching the clip above, I didn't realize the bison were brought over way back in 1924, for a movie, and have been living there since. I'd heard the movie they were used in was in the 1940's or 1950's, but that's not the case. So for close to 100 years now, American bison, which most of us call buffalo, have been living wild, but supervised, on Catalina. They are native to much of North America, but not to California, or Catalina or the other Channel Islands. With a trip to Catalina, you can take a buffalo tour to go see them. Safety tip: Don't take selfies with the "fluffy cows," they can really mess you up, they' huge and dangerous, even if they look really mellow.
As Southern Californians, we all know Catalina Island is out there, off shore, we've all seen it at some point, on a clear day. Many people forget, or don't know that there are actually eight islands off of the Southern California coast. At about 22 miles offshore, Santa Catalina is the closest, and can be reached by a couple of ferries from Long Beach, and by small planes or helicopters. It's one of the four southern Channel Islands, the other three are Santa Barbara, San Clemente, and San Nicolas Islands. San Clemente and San Nicolas are used by the military, and are off limits. Santa Barbara is tiny, and part of the national park with the northern islands.
So Santa Catalina, usually just called, Catalina, is the one we can all go visit. The native tribes used to travel to all of these islands in small canoes for thousands of years. A native woman named Juana Maria, was the last of the Nicoleno tribe on San Nicolas, and lived alone out there from 1835, until being removed in 1853.
The four northern Channel Islands are west of Malibu, and south of the city of Santa Barbara. Those four islands are named Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and tiny Anacapa Island. The four northern islands, and Santa Barbara Island, are part of the Channel Islands National Park. You can learn a lot more about the islands, and take a virtual tour at the website on the link. The Chumash tribe, native to the mainland around the Malibu area, also lived on some of the northern islands. There is evidence of humans living on Santa Rosa Island as far back as 13,000 years ago, and 11,000 years ago on San Miguel. So at the end of the last Ice Age, there were people on at least those two islands.
Catalina is the one island with a small city, Avalon, and as I found out when we worked out there, it's really reasonable to stay there in the off season. You can check out the Catalina/Avalon website for more info. Catalina is also known for diving and fishing, and lots of SoCal boaters head out there for day or weekend trips. Not only is Catalina the only place to see a heard of wild bison in Southern California, there's a lot more to do as well. This post will give you links to get started to learn more about Catalina and the other Channel Islands. You can also learn more at the Channel Islands Wikipedia page.
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