I want to warn anyone about moving/retiring to Siskiyou County. The county has 2 major pluses, which are, unfortunately, are far outweighed by the negatives, which might not become obvious immediately. This county is great for a week vacation trip, but definitely not for living there.

One of the pros is that the county is breathtakingly beautiful throughout: mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, wide-open spaces, caves are everywhere, all dominated by great volcano Mt Shasta. Natural beauty of this mountain region rivals top vacation destinations in Sierra Nevada. Another major pro is that the county is not crowded, has low population density and very little traffic. But that's about it....and there major cons. 

First, the entire northern half of the county and some of the southern-western parts suffer prolonged wildfire smoke events lasting 1 to 2 month; smoke is so bad that one has to leave the county and stay elsewhere to avoid health damage; it's not possible to breathe and visibility is such that it's hard to even drive, and such is every day; air quality levels are routinely measured as: Hazardous. National Forests to the West, which are upwind, tend to have big yearly wildfires that are not put out and are allowed to burn until autumn rain season. Their smoke is  blown East and fills most of the county (cut off point for smoke seems to be the mountain pass around Weed and Mt Shasta, though not always and even Mt Shasta has heavy smoke days)

Secondly, most "services" are non-existent in this county and one has to prepare for long drives to Redding or Oregon for about anything. This includes medical needs and groceries. There're only few food stores in the county. The only sensible food shopping option in the entire county is Raley's (big chain supermarket) in Yreka, in terms of prices being close to average in CA, selection and decent customer service. In the rest of the area, you'll find outrageous prices making even Manhattan and SF look cheap (locals call one chain store here a Ripoff Market),  horrendous "customer service" (lack thereof) and lack of selection. If you're into organic food, forget it, the only organic store Berryvale (in Mt Shasta) is overrun by unsanitary folk, druggies, vagrants and young hipster type rude employees, to the point one has to fear for their safety on premises. Attitude of employees there is "anything goes, I don't care". The Grocery Outlet that had opened up in Weed has serious trailer park vibes and staff behavior accordingly, a d it being in a big truck stop does not help. The only real option to get basic decent service one might expect anywhere else in the US would be to drive out of the county. Deep unprofessionalism is common not only in grocery business but also in trades and with realtors, the motto is: "expect about anything".

There's no nice small town atmosphere in this county's towns, which one may expect, such as being in a place where everyone knows everyone and people are polite and friendly, remembering customers by name, etc. None. The county is a transient county, which heavily contributes to these bad vibes and rudeness. County has 6 (small) towns: Yreka, Weed, Mt Shasta, Dunsmuir, Montague and McCloud (there're a couple of more population clusters out there but they're not really towns). Out of 6 towns, 4 biggest ones (except McCloud and Montague) are located on interstate I-5, with brings all the things that accompany being on the major drug corridor. There's also interstate route 97 running through Weed with heavy truck traffic. There're a lot of transients, vagrants, "trimmigrants" and drug transit people; Mt Shasta is really overrun by vagrants in summer who even lounge in front of the local police station, and in Weed you can see them hitching and begging around all highway ramps and on streets. Safety in these towns is low (look up federal crime statistics comparison tool on Sperling Best Place website and compare stats to US national averages...it does not look pretty). Mt Shasta is the only town where I had seen almost naked aggressive vagrants literally living in front of the Visitor Center, menacing visitors (sleeping there too), ....and I traveled a lot. Flood of transients creates nasty consequences such as local stores such as  Rite Aid banning backpacks and being very mean to anyone who unknowingly wanders in with a small backpack, a disgusting experience of distrust and being treated like a criminal....again, do not expect "friendly small town atmosphere" there.

Aside from population of vagrants, there's a big influx of tourists into Mt Shasta, which doesn't help to create a peaceful small town atmosphere either. Mt Shasta attracts a lot of mentally unstable folks, because of beliefs of underground Lemurian city under it, UFOs, etc....and it all shows in-town. Anything from people talking to themselves in the streets, including yelling at passerbys, to entitled and angry Bay Area nutjobs. One will do better, though, if they avoid Berryvale store, which is a central spot for these types. Don't get me wrong, there're a few nice, friendly people in town, those who're  born there and those who'd moved there, but the bad apples will ruin the experience as there're too many of them. Think of South Lake Tahoe overrun by impatient tourists, this is the same effect, the common bane of all tourist destinations. South Lake Tahoe, however, with all the tourist crowds, still manages to have good customer service, overall, which makes Siskiyou country stores look like something out of Deliverance. In Siskiyou towns along I-5, customer service people are used to people who come and go, stop for one night, not someone you might see tomorrow and have to interact with them again, which, I guess, leads to coldness, rudeness and weariness of endless flow of strangers.

Another issue in the county is major train route, which happens to be crude oil route as well. There're bomb trains traveling daily through difficult mountain terrain and sharp curves, right though the middle of small towns. There was a major train accident there in the 90s which lead to large amount of highly toxic herbicide being spilled into local river after derailment on a sharp curve, tons of fish and other aquatic life being poisoned, as well as poisoning of locals in Dunsmuir. This should serve as a good warning for what may happen if oil train derails, yet they're increasing the number of oil trains through the area, where they do 180 degree tight loops on a mountain slope..... Trains are sounding horns at any hours of the night, even at controlled intersections, making sleep impossible in towns of Dunsmuir and Mt Shasta. In Mt Shasta one may get some sleep if they're very far on very outskirts of town in the rural western part. But the train noise, honking and I-5 noise will still be heard in any part of these 2 towns.

Noice and pollution are the issue not only in Mt Shasta and Dunsmuir (latter is just a strip stretched along the freeway and railway, all houses being very close to it). I-5 noise can be heard well in Weed and Yreka as well, and downwind parts of towns get more of a freeway pollution. These are not the places where one can expect peaceful quiet evenings free from human noise even on a rural property.

McCloud fares better, being more of a real small village with friendly people and tighter-knit community, smaller amount of tourists and almost no transients as it's away from I-5, 10 minutes of driving through National Forests, from I-5. There's, however, noise from logging tracks that travel along highway 89 starting early hours on business days. McCloud has industrial area which is now mostly dormant, which almost felt victim to Danon Corporation that planned to open a huge bottling plant there, which 600 heavy truck trips per day on local roads; the locals were able to fight it off about 8 years go. Not clear, however, what happens to this industrial park on the edge of town in the future, if some other corporation takes over at some point which may bring noisy or polluting business and heavy truck traffic. There's a rail yard in the middle of McCloud, now unused, filled with many abandoned rail cars; railroad going East from McCloud had been officially decomissioned and the part of it that goes West from town is just unused now. Moving there one may have to consider pollution from train tracks/yard, as a few houses are quite close to it. I wouldn't grow any vegetables in the backyards of those houses. Real estate is ridiculously overpriced in McCloud, everyone wanting 200-250K for very small houses built in the 1920s, with tiny yards, no fences anywhere and houses standing back to back with little to no privacy. These are "mill houses" that the lumber mill that used to be the dominant business there had built to house their employees and gave it to them almost for free; one can imagine these being not exactly the most comfortable properties, yet the prices on them are extremely high. They look charming when you drive down the street, because of old time vibes, but this is different from living in them (I stayed in more than one of them).

The town of Montague which is 10 minutes East from Yreka is definitely free from tourist crowds or I-5 craziness and noise, but the vibes in the town are shady...this is the only way I can describe it. One ma "labs and grows" when visiting, and I visited a lot and stayed there. Some folks there a kind of way-out-there odd....A few abandoned rotten, moldy buildings, with
"no trespassing" signs. Many yards are filled with junk to the brink, old cars and all. Young folks that work nowhere and just endlessly hand on the front porch....graphitti. You get the idea. The town had run out of water some years ago during peak of the drought and had to install giant hose to bring water from  a lake many miles away; apparently, they couldn't find enough water under the town or find water clean enough...which makes one wonder if water supply might be a concern for the future. It feels like town may head in the direction of Detroit, just a subjective feeling from being there....The landscape around it is flat desert, but to get views of Mt Shasta you have to be outside of town itself, on a rural property.

Near Montague is Yreka, which is the biggest Siskiyou county town and is on I-5. Yreka looks quite pretty from the highway because of surrounding mountain views but this is because highway is located well above the town level. Down in town mountain views are rare and one might feel like they're in central Nebraska plains as well. Most house lots are quite small and houses sit close together. There're some nice views only from the most Western part of town and from most Eastern, only. That Western edge of town has nice homes on larger lots, more expensive (and overpriced) and very few of them ever come on the market, they tend to come in condition needing repairs, owners not willing to do a thing to fix their mess like a rotten roof, and usually are quickly snapped by cash buyers. The Eastern part is an unsafe rough area with trashed mobile homes mixed in. There's population of transients on the edge of town and there was even a talk of a serial killer, as some their bodies had been showing up along the creek bed. Yreka is in the desert and summer there is scorching, with temperatures rising almost up to Redding levels.

Most of the town of Weed is located on a superfund site, remnant of previous industry. Right now, town is dominated by wood processing plant (pressure treated wood....), with a some railroad tracks servicing the plant. Another part of town is a big truck stop, with many idling trucks at all times. Top this by being on I-5 and highway 97 and you get air quality concerns. Weed is a blue collar town. Carrick is a "suburb" of Weed, about 10 minutes East and is pretty shady part with many mobile homes, including abandoned and pitbulls that start crazing barking as soon as someone drives into the neighborhood....Carrick also has water issues. A lot of trucks from I-5 take to highway 97 and drive right through the middle of town, I'd say a new truck per couple of minutes.

Dunsmuir which is a strip clinging to I-5 and railroad has some interesting parts, with some very old houses in picturesque disrepair and colorful downtown section, nice to make some pictures, but there's not much to do there after a couple of visits. Town feels rough....walking the streets after dark may feel uncomfortable, plus the noise and pollution issues I had mentioned earlier.

I can imagine one might be fine living in this county on a very rural isolated property away from all towns, highways and railroads and closer to either Oregon border or Shasta county border (Redding) where they can drive to for shopping without spending too much time, but I'd never live anywhere in-town in Siskiyou.