Feature

The Gangs of Zion

Drawn to Utah by the Mormon Church, young Polynesians struggle to find an identity, and to escape from a seemingly endless cycle of gang-related violence

Editor's Note

The theology of growth

The problem of gang violence in Salt Lake City offers a disturbing glimpse into the conflicted soul of Utah and the rest of the rapidly growing West

Dear Friends

Dear friends

High Country News is now in full-color; Jacqui Banaszynski and Don Nelson give HCN some editorial advice

Uncommon Westerners

She builds new words in an ancient tongue

Reba Teran is painstakingly building an audio dictionary of spoken Shoshone, hoping to save both her language and her culture

News

Industry embeds its own in the BLM

Energy and mining companies are paying the salaries of workers at Bureau of Land Management offices around the West

Follow-up

Mexican wolf dies during checkup; another fish kill on the Klamath; Bush nominates H. Dale Hall to be new head of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Industry walks a fuzzy line between preservation and extortion

EnCana Oil and Gas offers to pay for offsite mitigation in Wyoming in exchange for intensive drilling rights in the Jonah Field

The Great Salt Lake's dirty little secret

Utah’s Great Salt Lake is loaded with mercury, and scientists are trying to figure out whether Nevada’s gold mines are part of the problem

Primrose focus of legal dustup

Environmentalists and ORV groups accuse the BLM of dragging its feet over implementing a plan to protect an endangered flower in California’s Clear Creek Management Area

Horn hunters face hard times

The rising popularity of Viagra has cut into the profits of Western antler-hunters, including Wyoming Boy Scouts

Domenici clobbers cooperation on the RioGrande

New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici says he wants to give more money to the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Act Collaborative Program – if the program will trim its membership and put itself under federal authority

Birds get a break from blades

More than half the windmills on California’s Altamont Pass will shut down for two months this winter so migrating birds can pass safely through the area

Book Reviews

A refreshing take on Wal-Mart vs. The World

In The United States of Wal-Mart, John Dicker offers a viciously funny but intelligently nuanced understanding of the Wal-Mart phenomenon

Crazy like a fox, or a fish, or a bat...

In The Back Road to Crazy, Jennifer Bove gathers the true-life adventure stories of 25 wildlife biologists

The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism

In The Battle over Hetch Hetchy, history professor Robert Righter chronicles the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in California’s Yosemite National Park

High Country

Willard Wyman’s novel High Country tells the story of a Depression-era boy who is wounded in World War II but finds healing in the Sierra Nevada

Essays

In the suburbs of Los Angeles, your futureawaits

The neighborhoods of suburban L.A. can serve as a useful model for the West’s urban planners

The American Dream, sans gasoline

The author’s successful search for a car that can run on biodiesel helps her understand the lure of the open road

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

The Gladstone Kibosh, EnvironGentle’s ungentle T-shirts; bicyclists meet baby horse; dog-of-honor at the wedding; Judge Royce Lamberth vs. the Interior Department’s incompetence; "Nothing" becomes something in Telluride

Letters

Engaging essays on a changing West

Smithsonian serves up Forest Service Lite

The cowboys are winning

Sasquatch in Seattle?

A return to feudalism

A balanced story on an unbalanced man

Related Stories

The Polynesians of Salt Lake City -- A Photo Gallery

Photo Essay: The varied lives of Polynesian Mormons