For the past 33 years, High Country News has lived up to its name, focusing on the news. Though we’ve concentrated on the environment, we’ve also covered Western culture, politics and economics, because you can’t separate the environmental issues from the arenas in which they play out. Besides, the context is part of what makes […]
Editor’s Note
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Learning to live with fire
I went to Mesa Verde National Park to see the ruins — not the cliff dwellings, which the Ancient Puebloan Indians mysteriously abandoned 700 years ago, but the ruined land itself. Since 1996, three major fires have torched more than half of the 55,000-acre park in southwest Colorado. You can’t help but notice the miles […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
To restore the West, go big and go native
It’s always disconcerting to have a myth blown apart — like when you discover that your favorite sports star, whom you always thought to be a nice, upstanding person, cheats on his wife or abuses his kids. The world wobbles; food doesn’t taste as good; you just want to fall asleep and wake up when […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
New Mexico’s new governor must reckon with history
It’s tough to get in a fight in New Mexico without getting everyone’s grandparents involved. Here, history is somehow both deeper and closer to the surface than it is elsewhere in the West. Take the Aamodt water rights case, for example, which High Country News covered back in 1984. On one side of the fight […]
Posted inApril 14, 2003: Change comes slowly to Escalante county
Reopening the wounds in southern Utah
I visited the spectacular Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, when it was still a raw wound in the body politic of southern Utah. As I talked to people in the scattered, dusty towns around the almost 1.9 million-acre-monument, I found deep-seated anger. There was the rancher who predicted he would never again be allowed […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The best restoration tools are fangs and claws
The first thing I did when I got to Glacier National Park was go out for a run. It seemed like the obvious thing to do. I’d just graduated from college in New England, packed my belongings and spent three hard days driving West across the Plains. I was dying to get back to the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Pure and simple, wilderness is not
My first encounter with a federally protected wilderness area came in the early 1980s. I was 23 and working for a conservation group in Washington, D.C., so I understood the concept. I even knew people who had dedicated their lives to trying to convince Congress to designate roadless chunks of the public domain as “wilderness,” […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Democrats kick back
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces five related articles: “Around the West, the hot races to watch,” “Montanans may take back their dams,” “New Mexico Green lose steam,” “Utahns could kill radioactive dump,” and “State’s big nuke waste fight takes a hit.” This November will be an “off-year” election, but reject the implication that nothing […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
After the fires, Part I
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reforming an agency such as the Forest Service is like pushing an old truck up a hill. It’s grunt work, and unless you have a lot of friends, you won’t get anywhere. But every once in a long while, there’s a shift. A moment […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Mr. Babbitt’s wild ride
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story, “Interior view,” an interview with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. In the rough-and-tumble world of American politics, you can be a hero one day, a bum the next. Few know this better than Bruce Babbitt. Eight years ago, when the U.S. Senate confirmed Babbitt as secretary […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
A new day
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story, “After the fall.” The “giant sucking sound” that presidential candidate H. Ross Perot described in his 1992 campaign can be heard today in the Northern Rockies, where the major timber companies are about done liquidating their private land and are busily moving cash, jobs and […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
The Hidden West
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Implicit in the late Wallace Stegner’s phrase, “a society to match the scenery,” is the belief that the West is built from the bottom up, and that the health and vitality of the land and its wildlife will be determined by the health and […]
Posted inFebruary 1, 1999: Saving the Platte
From river to river
Note: This front-page editor’s note is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. From river to river around the West, details vary, but the bigger picture is the same: The federal government brandishes the stick of the Endangered Species Act because it’s almost the only tool the government has to restore river ecosystems. Yet in […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Editor’s note
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story. In the 1960s, revolutions in Indian country were political, and the media swarmed in to cover sit-ins, demonstrations and fiery speeches. When the sit-ins and occasional violence ended, the media left and people on the reservations found little had changed. Today, Indian country is in […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story. If Salt Lake City were held to the same standards as cigarette manufacturers, there would be warning signs on its inbound roads: “Chaos Ahead!” and “Allow yourself an extra four hours!” Residents joke that the fastest way to get from suburban Salt Lake to the […]
Posted inDecember 13, 1993: Jack Ward Thomas: Hail to the chief
An historic event
This editors note, about the ramifications of appointing Jack Ward Thomas as the new chief of the Forest Service, introduces the feature articles in this issue. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline An historic event.
Posted inMay 3, 1993: Now that Denver has abdicated ... who will coordinate and inspire the West?
Who will coordinate and inspire the West?
A front-page editor’s note introducing Ed Quillen’s lead article on Denver. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Who will coordinate and inspire the West?.
Posted inAugust 20, 1971: Mines and power make impact
Our editor says …
Six months have passed since High Country News changed direction and became an environmental newspaper, supported by subscriptions of only $10 per year. Since you, our readers, are in effect our stockholders, I want to report to you. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/3.16/download-entire-issue
Posted inMarch 5, 1971: Nebraska rivers being threatened
Our editor says …
Americans are great people. But I think the readers of High Country News are the greatest. The response to our letter regarding the future of the paper has been heartwarming. I really can’t find the right words to express our feelings but I can say very simply — we won’t let the paper die! Download […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1971: Governors outline many state problems
Our editor says …
The people of Wyoming are being duped by the mining industry and the state’s highest political leaders. While we are being assured that millions of acres of our land surface are adequately protected, disaster may be waiting in the wings. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/3.2/download-entire-issue