One of the most iconic locations in all of Star Wars, the redwood forests of Del Norte County served as the earthly stand-in for the distant moon of Endor, and despite failing to fool the locals that Blue Harvest was a horror film starring Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and not the third Star Wars film Return of the Jedi, the boost to the local economy was very well received. However, the end of filming also signalled the end of an era as the trees of the inaccessible land owned by the Miller-Rellim Redwood Company was soon to be no more.
don’t get your hopes up for a visit to the celebrated set. Months after the “Star Wars” shoot was over, the logging company did what it did best and clear-cut the entire area. Endor is no more.
“Except, you can visit the grove where the speeder chase scene was shot,” clarified Nate Adams, deputy director of the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission.
Protected in perpetuity within a state park in Humboldt County are the remaining shreds of Endor. The Film Commission highlighted the area in its “Map of the Movies” for a self-guided tour through the two northern counties.
“It’s off Highway 36 in Grizzly Creek State Park along the Cheatham Grove path,” Adams said. “When you go there, you’ll recognize some of the fallen trees close to the trailhead. I was there last year to help with the Jeff Goldblum show and immediately recognized trees 40 years later.”
As detailed in its harvesting plan, the logging company had already scheduled to clear-cut the area where Endor once stood and it was set for destruction well before filmmakers expressed an interest to shoot there. Mario D. Vaden, an arborist and longtime photographer of Redwood National Park, thinks this was a missed opportunity.
“Had somebody been able to foresee the popularity and success of ‘Star Wars,’ it would have been crazy not to save the grove where Endor was made and use it as a tourist venue,” he said. “In the same way the Trees of Mystery have their attraction, it would have been world-famous.”
- Hardcover Book
- Davisson, Zack (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 192 Pages - 11/08/2022 (Publication Date) - Dark Horse Books (Publisher)
