Yontocket, California

Yontocket is an unincorporated community in Del Norte County, California located 3mi west-southwest of Smith River, at an elevation of 26 feet alongside Yontocket Slough.Yontocket Historic DistrictA Tolowa village named Hawunkwut was located in the dunes above the Yontocket Slough. Nearby is the Yontocket Historic District, an archeological site of the Indigenous peoples of California, added to the National Register of Historic Places #73000400 in 1973, commemorating the Yontoket Massacre of Tolowa people by white settlers in 1853. The dead were thrown in the slough, and the village burnt, after which it was known as Burnt Ranch.Yontocket SloughYontocket Slough was once the main drainage channel of the Smith River, but about 900 years ago, the river abandoned the channel. The 1856 map of the area shows the slough (then named "Ottawa Slough) tidally connected to the Smith River and the upstream Tryon Creek flowing south into Lake Earl but dune migration has cut off this connection. By 1942, the slough had begun to isolate from tidal influences. Ponds in the immediate area may be other channel remnants. Before the 1942 construction of Pala Road, dividing the slough into a lower (near the Smith River at the northern end) and an upper part, anadromous salmonids fish used the approximately 3.5mi waterway to migrate between the river and upstream spawning grounds. The slough has silted approximately 16in since the 1850s. Presently, the slough is isolated from the river at all but high water events and it is fed by rainwater and runoff; Pala Road routinely floods during most of the winter and spring.