Feature

The People of the Sea

California’s Salton Sea is at a crossroads, but whether it dries up and blows away or is restored and rejuvenated, the future does not look bright for its resident renegades, retirees and recluses.

Editor's Note

Don’t write off this story yet

The Salton Sea might appear to be dying, but like many another story in the West, it isn’t over with yet.

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Visitors; Paolo Bacigalupi’s book of sci-fi stories, Pump Six and Other Stories, is published; photographer and wilderness advocate Ernie Day dies; corrections.

Uncommon Westerners

I was a closet environmentalist

Roger Muggli might be the busiest man in eastern Montana, what with his family farm, his feed-pellet plant, his dedicated work on water issues and his quiet, steadfast environmentalism.

Writers on the Range

We’re in a land of Lincoln

For better and for worse, the West of today was created by Abraham Lincoln and the early Republican Party.

News

CSI: Critter Crime

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s forensic lab in Ashland, Ore., tackles wildlife crime from around the world.

Havana goes West

Conservative Western politicians such as Idaho Gov. Butch Otter are working to end the United States’ trade and travel embargo against Cuba.

Book Reviews

Men, machines, memories

In Five Skies, novelist Ron Carlson tells the terse and occasionally poetic stories of three emotionally damaged men working in Idaho for the summer.

Remembering Rrrrrip City!

The essays in Matt Love’s anthology Red Hot and Rollin’ take a lively and nostalgic look at Oregon in 1977, the year the Portland Trailblazers won their one and only NBA championship.

Essays

Staying put

These days, Ana Maria Spagna travels only in her imagination, as she and her partner, Laurie, stay home and care for their elderly, dying and much-loved cat, Daisy.

Heard Around the West

Heard Around the West

Karen Claver delivers the mail in remote, rural northern Montana; The Duane B. Hagadone Heliport Blues; neighbor vs. neighbor over Arizona “pop-ups”; and New York’s famous Moondance Diner moves to Wyoming, blizzards and all.

Letters

A Superior story

Working landscapes are the key

A new land ethic

Eight is just fine

It’s not a bluff

Two Weeks in the West

Two weeks in the West

Quagga mussels hit the jackpot in Nevada; Lakes Mead and Powell are in trouble; lots and lots and lots of snow – and a few ambitious ski resorts; and Colorado is building a vegetated overpass for wildlife on I-70.