Events

A Golden Rookery: The 19th Century Egg Wars at Farallon Islands 

October 18, 2025, 2:35 p.m., Winged Wonderment, Berkeley Bird Festival, David Brower Center, Berkeley, 2nd Floor, Tamalpais Room.

Before the Petaluma chicken industry hatched in the 1880s, San Franciscans whipped up Hangtown fries and fresh noodles with murre eggs plucked from precipitous cliffs on the Farallon Islands. I willl tell the story of how the fight for common murre eggs in the 19th century led to an egg war that culminated with a shootout and murder. 

 

Past featured speaker presentations 

Association for Mormon Letters Annual Conference 2019; Berkeley Breakfast Club; Berkeley Historical Society (walk and talk); Berkeley Path Wanderers Association (walk); Book Club of California; Books Inc., Berkeley; Book Passage, San Francisco; California Questers; California Writers Club, Berkeley and Fremont; California Native Plant Society: East Bay, Milo-Baker, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz,; Huntington Library, San Marino; Jack London State Park; Jack London Symposium 2016; Ina Coolbrith Circle (ICC), 2008, 2010; ICC Poetry Contest Banquet 2015; Laurel Books; Lincoln Poetry Group; Litquake 2015 (group poetry reading of Coolbrith's poems); Mechanics Institute; McCune Rare Book and Art Collection; Oakland Museum of California; Oakland Public Library; Pardee House; Rianda House; San Francisco Browning Society; San Francisco History Association; San Francisco Museum & Historical Society; San Francisco Public Library, Main and Merced Branches; St. Helena Public Library; Shaping San Francisco; Society of California Pioneers Auxiliary; Swan's Books; Solano County Public Library; Solano County Library Assn., Writing Women Back into History Luncheon; Women's Museum of California, San Diego; and Zamorano Club, Los Angeles.

To book Aleta George as a speaker, contact her at aleta.george<at>gmail.com