Eroding Narratives: California’s Coastlines and the Mythology of <i>Nova Albion</i>

On March 30, 2024, a chunk of Highway 1 outside of Big Sur, California collapsed into the ocean stranding as many as two thousand people in the Big Sur area. 1 Since its inception in the late 1910s, the cliff-perched highway has become an iconic feature of the American West, providing tourists with scenic views of the California coastline.More importantly, it has become an essential route for Californians.In some cases, it provides the only road between many of California's coastal towns.With even the partial closure of Highway 1, many of California's small coastal communities are severely impacted financially and physically with no tourists to drive business and no way to commute to other towns.The road collapse in 2024 was a minor incident in a long history of road collapses and landslides along Highway 1. Significantly, the January 2021 collapse left behind a 150-foot gap, and the March 2017 landslide covered twelve miles of the highway with more than a million pounds of debris. 2 Most of the highway runs on top or alongside of the San Andreas Fault, which makes up the Circum-Pacific belt or the "Ring of Fire" where more than 80 percent of the world's earthquakes occur-making the California coastline one of the most seismically active regions in the world.