Kudos to Michael Hudson for the spectacular image of the abandoned Kansas farmstead (“These were called the High Plains,” HCN, 5/26/14). I’d be pleased to have Julene Bair refer to me as “a grass man” and would be even more pleased if I had been there when Hudson took that sad and glorious photo. Ray […]
Departments
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
The catbird seat
Rick Bombaci hit many nails on the head in “The Big Nasty” (HCN, 5/26/14), but he missed a few. Before my horses and I got too old and lame to hit the mountain trails, I resorted to hanging a trash bag from my saddle horn to carry out the beer cans left by snowmobilers during the […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
When a parent dies, do we let the house fall?
Every generation must decide what to do with the lives that preceded theirs.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Snowmobiling for science in Idaho
Scientists and snowmobilers team up for smarter wolverine management.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
The Latest: After a long battle, agreement for the Klamath
BackstoryTo protect endangered fish during 2001’s drought, federal officials shut off irrigation water in Oregon and California’s Klamath Basin, costing agriculture millions. The next year, farmers got their water – along with a massive salmon die-off that infuriated Klamath tribes. Tribal members and farmers remained at odds until 2004, when federal rulings prompted dam-owner PacifiCorp […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Border out of control
National security runs roughshod over the Arizona wild.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
How mining transforms the West’s ranching communities
Photographs of people and places in flux.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Brine shrimp by the billions in the Great Salt Lake
Why is this shrimp fishery nearly conflict-free?
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Oil and gas wells hold a place of honor in a Colorado subdivision
Oil and gas infrastructure is common near homes in Weld County, Colorado, which has more than 20,000 active wells. But wells, pumpjacks and tanks seem to hold a place of honor in the Frederick subdivision of Wyndham Hill, in spots where you might expect parks and playgrounds. This article appeared in the print edition of […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
The first college degree in drones, a baby born in Walmart parking lot and more
IDAHOIn the TV studio, the faces of the journalists questioning the four Republican would-be candidates for Idaho governor sometimes registered dismay, other times wonder. They simply could not believe what they were hearing, when Walt Bayes declared his “main loyalty” was to God and against vile affections and wickedness, when motorcyclist Harley Brown boasted that […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Suckers for gold
Suction dredging for gold is basically a recreational activity. Required equipment: gasoline-powered dredge, sluice box, wetsuit and scuba gear. With a 4-inch-diameter hose, you vacuum up what’s on the bottom of rivers – stuff like gravel, woody debris, plants, mussels, snails, insect larvae, crayfish, frogs, salamanders, fish eggs, fish fry and, occasionally, gold. I have […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Consider the sparrow
The Urban BestiaryLyanda Lynn Haupt337 pages, hardcover: $27.Little Brown, 2013. Most communities across the West, urban and rural, are home to the animals in Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s new book, The Urban Bestiary, a collection of joyful meditations on the fauna that scamper over our lawns and roost on our power poles. While eastern gray squirrels, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
The leak heard ‘round the nuclear industry
A radioactive leak in New Mexico will make solutions to our waste problem even more elusive.
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Tainted Revelations: The Art of Bill Ohrmann by Joe Ashbrook Nickell
Tainted Revelations: The Art of Bill Ohrmann Joe Ashbrook Nickell, 140 pages, hardcover: $45. Missoula Art Museum In Tainted Revelations: The Art of Bill Ohrmann, author Joe Ashbrook Nickell provides a glimpse into the psyche of a 95-year-old artist still grappling with his place in the world. Tension is palpable in the oeuvre of this […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Crazed ‘patriotism’
Concerning the Sagebrush Rebellion timeline, (“The BLM vs. Cliven Bundy, HCN, 5/12/14), et tu, High Country News? “After a tense standoff between armed militiamen and federal agents …” Somehow these bullying military-armed lawbreakers have convinced the media, including HCN, to associate them with the Second Amendment and the “well-regulated militia” delineated there. These confused and […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Thumbs up and still breathing
Ahead of the Flaming Front: A Life on FireJerry D. Mathes II221 pages, softcover: $17.95.Caxton Press, 2013. Jerry D. Mathes’ second nonfiction book, Ahead of the Flaming Front, portrays the day-to-day life of a wildland firefighter. With a poet’s sense of language, Mathes describes his experiences as a rookie, gaining knowledge as he rises through […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Official lawlessness on the border
(This is the editor’s note accompanying an HCN magazine cover story, Border out of Control: Fear and anxiety over national security run roughshod on the Arizona wild.) In 1987, my brother, Brook, landed his first international reporting job in Mexico City. He took a crash course in Spanish and, following his editors’ advice, drove from […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Federal generosity
With the U.S. District Court of Nevada giving Cliven Bundy 45 days to remove his cattle from federal grazing land, land the Bundy family had occupied for nearly six decades, it came to mind that Gen. O.O. Howard didn’t give the Nez Perce such a generous amount of time back in 1877. They had just 30 […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Inexhaustible supply
Regarding “Two-Wheel Revolution” (HCN, 4/28/14), I was amused by your comparison of Gallup to Santa Fe as to the prevalence of “small loan companies.” The problems in Gallup are symptoms of problems in Santa Fe: elite concentrations of wealth and unsustainable consumption. As Voltaire wrote hundreds of years ago: “The wealth of the rich is […]