Feature stories
Browse High Country News feature stories
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How right-wing emigrants conquered North Idaho
Conservative transplants largely from California have taken over Kootenai County -- have they gone too far?
by Sierra Crane-Murdoch, May 20, 2013 -
Seeking balance in Oregon's timber country
Can logging towns and old-growth forests both thrive in the Northwest?
by Nathan Rice, May 06, 2013 -
Sacrificial Land: Will renewable energy devour the Mojave Desert?
An unlikely group of activists is championing a new bill to protect the Mojave Desert. But even if it passes, large swaths of once empty land will be developed.
by Judith Lewis Mernit, Apr 22, 2013 -
Secret getaways of the National Landscape Conservation System
A desert hiker finds a lot to like in little-known Bureau of Land Management gems.
by Craig Childs, Mar 25, 2013 -
Field notes from a solo paddle in Alaska’s Inside Passage
A journalism professor kayaks alone for nearly 1,000 miles, dealing with difficult seas, icebergs, orcas and bears.
by Nadia White, Mar 18, 2013 -
Climate change turns an already troubled ski industry on its head
California's Mammoth Mountain provides a case study on the uncertainty of the ski business, and how global warming threatens to make it even more unpredictable.
by Greg Hanscom, Mar 04, 2013 -
Farmers agree to tax those who deplete groundwater
Amid drought and climate change in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, farmers vote for a new approach to rein in their overpumping of groundwater.
by Cally Carswell, Feb 25, 2013 -
Will the Badlands become the first tribal national park?
Oglala Lakota leaders hope to transform their bombed-out Badlands and help lift the tribe out of poverty, but it won't be easy.
by Brendan Borrell, Feb 11, 2013 -
How Outward Bound lost, and found, itself
The original outdoor education school came close to falling apart after consolidating into a single national school. Now, its newly separate branches are thriving and redefining themselves.
by Emily Guerin, Jan 29, 2013 -
A field program teaches undergrads to think differently about public lands
Whitman College's Semester in the West and similar programs strive to make students think about resource issues critically and compassionately, and often change their lives in the process.
by Sarah Gilman, Jan 28, 2013 -
Oil and gas companies pour money into research universities
In the midst of the nation’s current oil and gas frenzy and controversies over fracking, energy company contributions to schools are raising questions about academic integrity.
by Joshua Zaffos, Jan 22, 2013 -
Oil boom spurs a rush on extractive education programs
As production from unconventional reserves ramps up, students are flooding into university and technical programs supporting oil and gas development.
by Jeremy Miller, Jan 21, 2013 -
In Montana, Dark Money Helped Democrats Hold a Key Senate Seat
With control of the Senate at stake, liberals hit the Montana streets in support of Jon Tester, buying ads for a libertarian candidate who likely siphoned crucial votes away from Denny Rehberg, the Republican challenger.
by Kim Barker, ProPublica, Jan 07, 2013 -
A mining rush in Canada’s backcountry threatens Alaska salmon
Canadian governments back proposals for more than a dozen new mines along salmon-rich rivers that flow to the Alaska coast.
by Christopher Pollon, Dec 31, 2012 -
As it goes high-tech, wildlife biology loses its soul
We're learning a lot by monitoring wild animals, but the high tech methods used to track them take some of the mystery out of our relationship with the wild.
by Jim Robbins, Dec 17, 2012 -
A Washington tribe and a timber company wrestle over a forest's future
The Port Gamble S'Klallam are protecting their treaty rights to fish and shellfish in Port Gamble Bay, using laws to limit development, much to the frustration of timber company-turned-developer Pope Resources.
by Joshua Zaffos, Dec 03, 2012 -
Is there a way through the West's bitter wild horse wars?
Activists push compromise as the controversial federal mustang management program reaches a breaking point, with more horses in captivity than roam the range.
by Dave Philipps, Nov 19, 2012 -
How the Mormon GOP runs Utah with a collectivist touch
One of the most conservative states in the nation has built one of the healthiest economies not with purely laissez-faire policies, but with a dose of federal dollars and central planning.
by Jonathan Thompson, Nov 05, 2012 -
The soul in Suite 100: A ghost story
The author considers family lore and legends, including a ghost story about her great-grandmother in New Mexico.
by Hannah Nordhaus, Oct 22, 2012 -
The fossil record: How my family found a home in the West
The Gilman clan didn't go on normal vacations; their fossil-addicted parents trundled them across the West looking for the shells of long-extinct sea creatures.
by Sarah Gilman, Oct 16, 2012
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