Feature

The street hierarchy

Aaron Gilbreath mulls the very large difference between being a pedestrian in ultra-cool Portland, Ore., and in sprawling Phoenix, Ariz.

Reclaiming the low country

Jared Farmer speaks in praise of Utah’s neglected “low country” landscapes – places like Utah Lake.

Editor's Note

Evolution of a magazine

Today’s redesigned High Country News is definitely a magazine, far removed from the black-and-white tabloid newspaper it once was.

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Late-summer visitors drop by HCN’s office.

A photographic life

Photographer Grant Heilman talks about his life and work in the West.

News

The deja-vu of ‘Drill here, drill now’

Despite a few sensible aspects, Jimmy Carter’s ideas about energy would not have been good for the West’s environment.

Leaky border

Efforts to stop wastewater pollution from Tijuana have bogged down in a nasty mess.

A river runs near it

In Washington’s Yakima Valley and in northern Colorado, water developers want to build kindler, gentler “off-channel” reservoirs.

Book Reviews

Alexandra Fuller: A fine line between protest and profession

Author Alexandra Fuller talks about the impacts of oil drilling on her chosen home of Wyoming.

Cheewa James: Chronicler of the ‘Tribe That Wouldn’t Die’

Cheewa James digs into the little-known history of her own people: the Modoc Indians of southern Oregon’s Klamath Valley.

Fall reading

Jodi Peterson and Kate Niles spotlight new books on Western subjects and/or by Western authors, both fiction and nonfiction.

Book Notes

An owl and his girl, bottom-feeders and the world's greatest flood.

Searching for something to search for

In Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, William Least Heat-Moon saunters across America, looking for the strange and the true.

Only the scared survive

Joel Berger’s The Better to Eat You With and William Stolzenburg’s Where the Wild Things Were examine predators and the role of fear.

When war came home

Ivan Doig’s new novel, The Eleventh Man, follows a Montana man across the globe during World War II.

The creation of wholeness

Terry Tempest Williams celebrates Rwanda, mosaics and Utah prairie dogs in her new book, Finding Beauty in a Broken World.

Essays

A Western primer

Western writers offer a generous and inspired list of recommended reading for the president-elect, including a diverse collection of fiction and nonfiction.

Letters

Don't eat the rich, tax them

Wet dreams

Keep 'em down on the farm

Crying Fowl

Population conversation

Conversation (Q&A)

River and Vision: Kim Barnes and the story of loss

Joe Wilkins talks to Idaho author Kim Barnes about her love for the Clearwater River country.

Two Weeks in the West

On the ballot: "Clean" coal and moose stew

Political conventions obsess about “clean” coal and Sarah Palin, and sideline discussions of oil and gas impacts.