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Ensconced in Redwood National and State Parks, located about 300 miles north of San Francisco, the narrow, dramatic canyon is famous for its 50-foot rock walls festooned in oversized ferns. From the top, tiny waterfalls trickle down through fuzzy mosses, and down below a creek rushes through the center over a multi-hued pebble floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The canyon has been designated a World Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve, and gotten its share of publicity over the years. Too much. A quick search on Instagram for #ferncanyon turns up 27,000 posts, and it\u2019s also been used as a backdrop in a number of films, including \u201cThe Tree of Life,\u201d an art film featuring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, and Steven Spielberg\u2019s \u201cThe Lost World: Jurassic Park\u201d with Julianne Moore, Jeff Goldblum and Vince Vaughn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After I visited the canyon for the first time in 2020 and learned it was a set in the dinosaur movie, I knew I wanted to watch it. Before I did though \u2014 and because I live about 45 minutes south of Redwood National and State Parks \u2014 I went back to the canyon three times first, each during a different season. Each was entirely different.<\/p>\n\n\n
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In the wintertime, the creek runs super high. On the canyon floor, toppled trees poke in all directions like pick-up-sticks. In the spring, the vibrant green ferns are flourishing and in the summer \u2014 when the footbridges are installed to assist with crossing the creek \u2014 it\u2019s the vacationers that proliferate. When autumn rolled around this year, the wild mushrooms had really begun to pop, and the Roosevelt elk (which sometimes wander through the canyon) were calming down after their yearly rut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every time I visited, I wondered anew about the canyon\u2019s role in the Jurassic Park sequel. I had seen the first movie as a teenager and definitely enjoyed it. But when the second one came out, I seemed to remember being told it was not as good as the first, so I skipped it. Earlier this week, as I lay in bed after my COVID booster, I decided it was time for \u201cThe Lost World.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now having watched the two-hour-long, $73 million production, I can say that there are some ways Fern Canyon probably shouldn\u2019t be seen. Even Spielberg was apparently regretful that the movie didn\u2019t turn out better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sequel has all the darkness of the first movie but very little of the awe and wonder, save for the \u201cfirst encounter\u201d scene \u2014 which was shot in the canyon. As humans gaze up at a group of stegosauruses wandering about in the canyon, its giant ferns, rushing creek and filtering light are on full display. Things go south after one character gets too close to a baby and adults come charging at her, swinging their tails and nearly impaling her after she dives into a hollow log.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fern Canyon is featured again later in the film<\/a>, when a villainous character stumbles on a group of mini velociraptors and they chase him around, attacking like piranhas with legs. He shakes them off a few times and tosses pebbles at them, but repeatedly falls over into the creek, and finally, they devour him off camera. The water runs red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s probably the most satisfying part of the whole movie,\u201d says Richard Stenger, Chief Marketing Ranger with RedwoodCoastParks.com, a consortium of outdoor adventurers, conservationists and lodging partners in Humboldt County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if the actors disappointed, Stenger says, Fern Canyon did not. \u201cToo bad they don\u2019t give Oscars for scene locations,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s not much of a stretch to drop Hollywood dinosaurs into Fern Canyon. It’s in one of the oldest forest ecosystems on the planet and resembles a patch of forest similar to what real dinosaurs might have lumbered through millions of years ago.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The undisputed beauty of Fern Canyon \u2014 and its use in film \u2014 has actually become a problem, according to Redwood National and State Parks Chief of Interpretation and Education Candace Tinkler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFern Canyon is a very fragile, special place,\u201d Tinkler wrote in an email to SFGATE. \u201cAs visitation to our parks steadily increases and as Fern Canyon has, for various reasons, been recently spotlighted over and over again in everything from the media and internet to movies, it has become a destination and overcrowded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park officials are looking for assistance from the media to encourage park visitors to instead seek out some of the less crowded and trampled areas, she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, several years back officials looked at the cumulative impacts of Fern Canyon\u2019s use in film and determined that it should no longer be available as a set. \u201cWe recognized that the best way to protect that area was to not continue to draw even more impact to it,\u201d says Erin Gates, Acting Deputy Superintendent of Redwood National and State Parks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe also recognized that our state parks are protected for the people of California and the people who come to visit California,\u201d she added. \u201cBy continuing to allow filming in an area that’s already being significantly impacted by increased visitation, we’re actually having to cut off visitation and access to parks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was curious about what Gates and Tinkler thought of “The Lost World,” but as a policy state and federal employees must apparently remain neutral on such matters. \u201cIt would be very inappropriate (and against regulations) for us to use the authority of our position to steer customers to one business over another,\u201d Tinkler wrote. \u201cThis applies to the movie business, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gates was able to say this, though: \u201cSeeing the place with your own eyes is worth the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Ashley Harrell with <\/em>SFGate<\/a>.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Harrell is an Associate Editor covering California’s parks for SFGATE.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/orick.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/1200x0-2-1024x768.jpg\")
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