High Country News - Writers on the Range
-
The Old West went that-a-way
Encouraged by an East Coast editor, the writer gives her outspoken opinion of the "Real West," and the editor turns it down.
by Mary Sojourner, May 13, 2002 -
Leave my town out of your 'Top 10'
When an article appears in Men's Journal proclaiming his home town in the "top 10" of best places to live, the author can't understand what criteria the decision was based on.
by Rob Marin, Apr 29, 2002 -
Notes from a corporate insider: It's not easy turning green
The sustainable-business movement, which holds that environmentalism and business can be a winning combination, is not as easy on the ground as it may seem.
by Auden Schendler, Apr 01, 2002 -
Developers push revisionist history
Developers engage in "green washing" when they claim willing participation in consensus to save Dry Lake.
by Norm Wallen, Apr 15, 2002 -
The Postal Service stamps the mythic West
Wyoming's fight with Montana over a new Montana stamp that shows a cowboy on a bucking horse shows that the Postal Service has fallen for Western myths that have nothing to do with the states' real characters.
by Mark Matthews, Apr 01, 2002 -
Bush turns BLM into energy machine
President Bush's brand-new National Energy Office is designed to expedite drilling and mining on public lands.
by Charles Levendosky, Mar 18, 2002 -
In California, no water project is too big
An Alaska company's much-mocked plan to haul bags of water 400 miles along the California coast is really no crazier than the things California has come up with in its search for water.
by John Krist, Mar 18, 2002 -
Westerners share a different reality
A "time" magazine column about satellite radio that described the New Jersey Turnpike as "the middle of nowhere" provides unintentional humor to Westerners who know the real meaning of nowhere.
by Ray Ring, Mar 04, 2002 -
You can call mine Mortgage Manor
A new database that allows one to register the fancy names of luxury homes for $75 a house will not get a lot of use by those who live in houses with names like Sagging Floor and Mortgage Manor.
by Mary Sojourner, Mar 04, 2002 -
The Eucalyptus: Sacred or profane?
The writer says that California's much-prized eucalyptus trees are really overgrown, fire-prone weeds that would be better off in their native Australia.
by Ted Williams, Feb 18, 2002 -
Attention, wolves: I'm what's for dinner
In the extremely unlikely event that any wolves reintroduced to Colorado began eating people, the writer says he would gladly volunteer to serve as a meal.
by Marty Jones, Feb 18, 2002 -
How does snow melt? A test for all Westerners
With each flood of newcomers to the Interior West, specialized knowledge of place and culture is both lost and gained.
by Allen Best, Feb 18, 2002 -
Why the bad rap for Mormons?
A Utah resident wonders why so many non-Mormons have such weird ideas about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
by Barbara Schuster, Feb 04, 2002 -
Indian trust is anything but
Blackfeet tribal member and banker Elouise Cobell writes about her legal battle to make the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Interior Department accountable for millions of dollars missing from Indian trust funds.
by Elouise Cobell, Feb 04, 2002 -
The American West is an island besieged
An encounter with an almost-extinct Hawaiian bird leads the writer to wonder whether the West's own wildlife and cultures can survive, or whether the region is fated to become a museum instead of a living landscape.
by Paul Larmer, Jan 21, 2002 -
Libby tested environmentalists, who came up short
The writer says environmentalists cared so much about wildlife and public lands that they missed a deadly mess in Libby, Montana
by Ray Ring, Mar 02, 2005 -
Giving back the bison
Mark Matthews says tribal management of a federal bison refuge makes sense
by Mark Matthews, Jun 15, 2003 -
Like Butte, Montana, an old dog hangs on
A mysterious, mostly wild dog, fed by local miners, has somehow survived for 16 years in the desolate moonscape of a Superfund site -- the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Mont.
by Matt Vincent, Dec 09, 2002 -
Gardening old-style with my great-uncle Alfred in Seattle
The other day my great-uncle Alfred gave me a handful of the year's green beans, dried and ready for planting next summer. "Give them something high up to grow on," he told me. "They'll grow 7 feet tall."
by Dustin Solberg, Nov 12, 2002 -
Walking in Portland can be dangerous to your health
Last week another vehicle almost nailed me flat as a coffin. I was alone in a crosswalk in the center of Oregon's most worldly city, Portland. I had been walking uphill and had made it six blocks west of the Willamette River.
by Sharon Wood Wortman, Nov 05, 2002
High Country News in your inbox!