Northwest environmental activists have branched out from their natural urban habitat and invaded the bright shiny suburbs of the Pacific Northwest, looking to wake up the green vote that slept through the 1994 election. Washington state has become a national battleground since 1994, when it threw out five Democratic House members – including Speaker Tom […]
Feature
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Arizona: Harvesting a bumper crop of bombast
Recent Arizona history has provided us with plenty of grimly entertaining political characters: Used-car salesman Evan Mecham’s first act on being elected governor in 1987 was refusing to sign into law Martin Luther King Day. Less than two years later, he was impeached by the state Senate. Current Gov. Fife Symington isn’t in danger of […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Nevada: Who hates nuclear waste most?
Nevada’s two congressional districts seem a lot like Mutt and Jeff: Covering two-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s land mass but containing half its population, the 1st Congressional District encompasses Las Vegas. The other 99.8 percent of the state is the 2nd Congressional District. In a tight race for the Las Vegas seat are […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Greens prune their message to win the West’s voters
The glow from his laptop computer turns the young man’s face pale green. On the screen is a labyrinthine database: street names, women’s ages, voting records. The bearded activist says that this technology could change the outcome of many of the West’s elections. “First we took the member lists for the environmental groups in the […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Can this man break the right’s grip on Idaho?
NAMPA, Idaho – Wearing a pressed plaid shirt and glossy cowboy boots, Walt Minnick is doing his best to fit in with the crowd at the Snake River Stampede, an annual rodeo here, 15 miles down Interstate 84 from Boise. It’s not working. “Walt Minnick, I’m running for the Senate,” the neatly groomed 54-year-old says […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
1996: Clinton takes a 1.7 million-acre stand in Utah
A Bold Stroke: Clinton takes a 1.7 million-acre stand in Utah
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
The filthy West
Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Last line of defense
Civil disobedience and protest slowdown ‘lawless logging’
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Cove-Mallard: ‘I’m just trying to right what I feel is wrong’
Content removed at freelancer’s request. Article and three sidebar articles are available in print edition, found in bound volumes at HCN’s Paonia headquarters and in several university libraries. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Cove-Mallard: ‘I’m just trying to right what I feel is wrong’.
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
A new breed of artists depicts Montana – cyanide leach fields and all
For Marilyn Bruya, the turning point came one February morning a few years ago when she gazed out the window of an airplane over western Montana and made a startling discovery. “There were more clearcuts than forests,” Bruya recalls, still amazed. By the time she returned home to Missoula, inspiration had bubbled into conviction. Ever […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Of muskrats and mortality
When I am driving up the dugway toward Logan Canyon I think that if I get going fast enough I can fly upward to where my father will go when his cancer finds the kindness to release him. It seems to be a place over the mountains, in the air above the canyon; and I […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Searching for grass in a magic valley
In 1980 I was laboring in southern Idaho for the Bureau of Land Management, doing hot, dusty work that belied the local name for the Snake River bottomlands: the Magic Valley. My job was to look for grass, find how much was there and report to my superiors. Then they could determine whether or not […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
While the vultures circle
The air around the volcanic mesa shimmers with reflected heat; if the temperature rises, surely it will return to molten lava. I’m on Black Butte in the southernmost peak of Arizona’s Vulture Mountain chain, a place where vultures are the only birds ingenious enough to perch atop the black crags: They piss on their feet. […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Sowing the red suns of August
This was my dream: I wanted vines obscenely thick with tomatoes, a constellation of what my friend John calls his “red suns of August.” Early Girls and Romas; don’t forget peppers and some cucumbers snaking around my feet as well, and a long hedge of basil. I wanted to walk into the garden, maybe barefoot […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
What is a Navajo taco?
The sign at Ambassador Auto’s used-car lot in Moscow, Idaho, is advertising a 1993 Mazda Navaho (sic) in stock for $18,487. Seems like a lot of cash, but then I remember the glossy magazine ads: “Navajo: It knows the land.” Just down the street, Taco Time has launched their new “Navajo Taco,” for only 99 […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Why Juan Valdez doesn’t haul coffee beans on a llama
Recently I read a story in an outdoor-sports magazine about how “superior” llamas are to horses, burros and mules for backcountry packing. It caused me to spit green grass juice. Over the last decade, I have trained, cared for and packed with burros, horses and llamas. I’ve even gone so far as to enter a […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Wallowing the flies away
Ouch! A fly bit me in the soft spot under the lobe of my ear. Gripped with insights about trees and rocks, I’d stopped moving for too long. While even the sheep slept that I’d come to herd, I walked back to stand in the opening of the tent. My brother mumbled inside and the […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Advice for visitors to Rock Springs
(Note: this article was printed in a broken-line poetic format; this online version does not preserve that format.) If you stop at the diner on the outskirts of town, skip the soup full of dust from Indian graves, the rinds of bad winters bobbing in a mean meat broth. Avoid the acid coffee & too […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Junkyard Rancher: Automotive wrangler scraps for a living
“Well buddy when I die, throw my body in the back, and drive me to the junkyard in my Cadillac.” – Bruce Springsteen CARBONDALE, Colo. – Three phones are ringing in the office of the J-Y Ranch. A woman follows me in the door. “Have you got a window motor for a Jeep Cherokee?” she’s […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Disappearing railroad blues
SALIDA, Colo. – For about 25 years, people around here have observed that “the train doesn’t stop here any more.” Someday soon, we may be saying that the train doesn’t even come through here any more. “Here” is a town of 5,000 in the middle of Colorado. Like many towns in the West – Cheyenne, […]