WILLITS, CA., 9/6/26 — A clearing in the Noyo River Canyon sports a red-topped circus tent. There’s no road access. Starting Sept. 11, the way in is a train.
For 17 days, the Skunk Train is running passengers out of its Willits depot into the redwoods to see “The Cricket & the Wren,” a two-hour show by Flynn Creek Circus. Trains leave at 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., depending on the day dark on Mondays, and the whole outing runs about four hours gate to gate. The last one goes out Sept. 27.
Flynn Creek is a Mendocino County company, started in Comptche in 2002 and run now by Blaze Birge and her husband, David Jones. The two of them worked a trapeze act as the Daring Jones Duo until they retired in 2024, though they still perform comedy, knife-throwing and sharpshooting. The circus tours May to January under its own big top, mostly through small towns in California, Oregon and Washington. It’s an all-human circus; every act in the ring is a person doing something difficult.
“The Cricket & the Wren” is a fairy tale. A merchant’s daughter sets out to break the spell on the Frog Prince and finds out what the cricket and the wren gave up along the way. The cast this year includes an aerialist who spent the pandemic building an act on the multicorde, and a Chinese pole artist who came to the circus by way of drum corps and a trombone, a Venezuelan comedian whose specialties include hanging by his hair, and a Russian swing act led by a pirate.
The railroad announced the collaboration in February and billed it as a first for the line, which has been carrying passengers into these woods for a century.
“It brings back the spirit of the Golden Era of circus travel by rail in the best possible way,” Birge said in the announcement. “I can think of nothing more charming than riding the iconic Skunk Train through towering redwoods that open to reveal a vintage big top tent.”
Tickets run $137 to $322 a person, with infants on laps free. The cheap end is Big Top, which is the train ride and general seating in the tent. The middle tier, Mr. Moundshroud’s Premium Seating, adds a picnic meal and a reserved bench behind the ringmaster seats. The top of the range, 21 and over, puts you in the Noyo — the mid-century cocktail lounge the Skunk’s crews built out of a former U.S. Army car in the Fort Bragg roundhouse, moved to Willits by highway in August and is now in service. The Noyo ticket includes two cocktails, light bites and a table at the edge of the ring. Residents of Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties get a discount on some weekdays.
The other new thing on the railroad this year is at the far end of the line. On June 22 the Skunk rolled out Locomotive 1776 at Fort Bragg, a road switcher repainted with the flag and a bald eagle for the country’s 250th, and it now leads most departures from the coast — the Pudding Creek Express, the Redwood, the runs up to the Glen Blair Bar.
The railroad’s 40 miles of track have been cut in two at Tunnel No. 1 since a collapse in 2015, so the Fort Bragg end and the Willits end operate as separate depots, with the circus on the inland side. That side is where the company has put its money this season: the Noyo went there, and so did the Railcoaster, the electric-assist railbike run that launched in May and climbs through the 1,100-foot Summit Tunnel.
The depot is at 299 E. Commercial St. in Willits. Trains leave on time, so the railroad asks people to show up half an hour early. Concessions, beer and wine are for sale at the tent. The show goes on rain or shine. No dogs on this one.
On Sept. 27, the last train comes back down the canyon, the tent comes down behind it, and Flynn Creek loads out for Corvallis. Tickets and the full schedule are at skunktrain.com.
