Feature

Ganjanomics: bringing Humboldt's shadow economy into the light

Marijuana growers and government officials in California's notorious "Emerald Triangle" work towards legitimizing the local cash crop.

Editor's Note

Economies of vice

If marijuana becomes fully legal and taxable, it won't be the first time authorities have learned that it's easier - and more profitable - to manage vice than to try to eliminate it.

Dear Friends

Welcome, new interns!

New interns Marian Lyman Kirst and Kimberly Hirai; correction.

Book Reviews

Portraits of the frontier West: A review of Western Heritage

Editor Paul Andrew Hutton gathers some award-winning articles on Western history and culture.

A Western mystery with an environmental twist: a review of Buried by the Roan

In Mark Stevens' second novel, Allison Coil, a tequila-drinking hunting guide, investigates a mysterious death in a remote landscape much sought after by oil and gas developers.

Essays

Adventuring on Colorado's big peaks

A woman finds solace and delight in climbing Colorado's highest and most challenging mountains.

Letters

The global is local

No diving allowed

A border crosser does not an immigrant make

'Grab the bucks, gimme the jobs'

Current

Re-watering Nevada's dying Walker Lake

Walker Lake in northwestern Nevada has been dying for years, but locals and government officials are determined to restore it.

Barrow, Alaska: an unlikely boomtown

A Korean cabdriver finds an unlikely home in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the U.S.

Yellowstone leak highlights a different kind of oil spill

A recent oil spill in Montana's Yellowstone River reminds Westerners that not all such environmental disasters happen in the Gulf of Mexico.

Biochar makeover for abandoned mines?

Researchers are trying to restore the damaged, acidic soil around abandoned hardrock mines with the help of biochar, a special form of charcoal.

Settlements prompt federal decisions on hundreds of endangered species

In a settlement with environmental groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agrees to make listing decisions about more than 250 imperiled candidate species.