High Country News April 02, 2007
Feature
Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields
Without a college degree, work on the oil and gas fields is the best job you can get in the rural West – unless, of course, it kills you
Related Stories
Fatalities in the energy fields: 2000-2006
At least 89 people died in the energy fields of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming during the last six years
Editor's Note
It tolls for us
The energy boom in the Rocky Mountain West has been shadowed by a much darker boom: a frightening rise in death and serious injury
Dear Friends
Dear friends
Wilf Bruschke visits; singer John Winn writes a song inspired by Patricia Walsh’s column on green burial; Claire Anderson helps dogs in Mexico; clarification and corrections
Two Weeks in the West
Two weeks in the West
No yellow snow for Snowbowl; gonorrhea and meth: a match made in hell; split-estate bills in New Mexico and Colorado; Montana’s green energy bills languish; “Rocky Mountain High” second Colorado state song, bolo tie is official New Mexico neckwear.
Uncommon Westerners
Lewis’ Web
Wyoming microbiologist Randy Lewis is fascinated by spiders – particularly by the remarkable silk they produce.
News
Harvesting the sky
Thirsty Santa Fe, N.M., considers an innovative law requiring all new buildings to install rainwater-harvesting systems.
Book Reviews
Thomas McGuane’s lonely freaks
The powerful short stories in Thomas McGuane’s Gallatin Canyon prove him to be the New West’s answer to Flannery O’Connor.
Essays
The single women who homesteaded the West
The women who homesteaded the Old West defy the stereotypes we make of them.
Heard Around the West
Heard Around the West
Reckless unicorns; dogs and kids will stay in those truck beds; calling Jesus in Idaho; Stardust reduced to dust; can’t afford to live in Seattle; moose takes on helicopter in Alaska.
