Departments
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
Big water, big dreams
The Emerald Mile: the Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand CanyonKevin Fedarko432 pages, hardcover: $30.Scribner, 2013. When did we get so petty? At a time when we’re faced with huge issues – a changing climate, a healthcare crisis, a democracy threatened by money in politics, the legacy […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
HCN’s Coverage of the Federal Shutdown
The following comments were posted in response to Jonathan Thompson’s blog, “The shutdown hits the West harder.” Thompson considered the region’s high percentage of federal employees and uninsured. It’s not just feds who are furloughedThank you for pointing out that the furloughed employees are not all in Washington, D.C., and are not all “federal” employees. […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
Zombies invade the West!
Well, perhaps not yet, but it’s only a matter of time before the flesh-eating hordes are upon us. And who better to dodge the undead than High Country News? Not only are we well-versed in geography, as publishing industry veterans, we’re proven survivalists. So what’s our advice? This article appeared in the print edition of […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
The Latest: Woodland caribou are in danger of disappearing from the U.S.
Environmental groups file suit over caribou habitat.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
New Mexico’s groundwater protections may take a hit
The state has long been a leader in this area – is that about to change?
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
A new Apache homeland in New Mexico?
An Okie Apache fights his kin to build a casino and bring his people home.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Dispatch from Twiggley Island: an essay
Neighbors band together to survive after the Colorado floods.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
KDNK Radio and Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock on Front Range floods
September’s massive flood devastated the front range town of Lyons, and recovery efforts there and in other affected communities are ongoing – even as a partial government shutdown threatened to pull National Guard members from essential work repairing roads and bridges. For the latest edition of Sounds of the High Country, KDNK’s Eric Skalac talks […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Lessons from the flooded Front Range
Learning to live with the inevitable.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Tribal casinos don’t like competition
The Northern Edge Navajo Casino sits on an otherwise empty chunk of desert alongside northern New Mexico’s San Juan River, just inside the Navajo Nation’s borders. It’s a perfect place for a casino, right across the river from Farmington, N.M., home to hundreds of energy-field workers with cash burning holes in the pockets of their […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
The fungus among us
West Nile virus, valley fever, hantavirus: Over the past decade, the West has seen an increase in some rare but scary illnesses. According to a September study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the U.S. places 11th globally for incidents of plague. Scientists also recently discovered that a deadly tropical fungus, which […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Hikers face assorted hazards, bull elk get revenge on hunters, and more
What have you heard?
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
A review of Painters and the American West, Vol. 2
Painters and the American West, Vol. IIJoan Carpenter Troccoli, et al.,344 pages, cloth: $80. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. In Painters and the American West, Vol. 2, retired art scholar and museum director Joan Carpenter Troccoli writes about the lives and times of the artists whose works fill the American Museum of Western Art in […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
The mysterious reappearance of the white-bottomed bee
A Western species that crashed in the 1990s may be making a comeback in Washington and Colorado.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Is this heaven? No, it’s Idaho
Godforsaken Idaho: StoriesShawn Vestal,209 pages, softcover:$15.95.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Shawn Vestal sets the stories in his focused yet far-reaching debut collection among regular Mormon folks who live in Idaho, touching on their lives in the past, the present and even the afterworld. Most of his characters have fallen away from their faith or are struggling […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Help HCN complete its online archives!
We’re proud that High Country News is 43 years old — but our website, hcn.org, is still incomplete, because our online archive goes back only 20 years. Now we’re finally scanning in issues published before 1994. Soon they’ll be available online. We need your help to finish the project, though. So far, our point man, […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Gimpy’s lessons
I found Ana Maria Spagna’s essay, “The story of Gimpy” touching and thought-provoking (HCN, 9/2/13). Beyond evoking the compelling image of the black bear left incapable of foraging by a gunshot wound, Spagna addresses human compassion toward animals, concluding, “We’re all connected and we owe our fellow creatures something.” It is essential that HCN continue […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
The world of the speed artist
The FlamethrowersRachel Kushner400 pages, hardcover: $26.99.Scribner, 2013. Reno, the 22-year-old protagonist of Rachel Kushner’s second novel, The Flamethrowers, makes her first appearance as she flies across Nevada on her way to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in the 1970s. “The land was drained of color and specificity,” she observes. “The faster I went, the more connected […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
The cartographer’s lament
Thanks for keeping the art and science of cartography alive (“You are here,” HCN, 9/16/13)! I’m a cartographer, too, working in my own little shop. While the independence is really fine, the economics of competing with the large corporations is devastating. Now, with mapping going online, there is very little true cartography involved. It’s just […]