BackstoryBy mid-2011, more than 650 mining claims had been staked on the sites of proposed solar and wind projects on public land in the West — deliberate attempts, some say, to delay or halt renewable energy development (“BLM shields renewable projects from mining speculation,” HCN, 5/30/11). Mining claims trump surface rights, and if salable minerals […]
Departments
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Smokey the Bear gets cuddly
THE WESTTwenty-five years ago, river guides who’d mastered the art of steering boats through the Grand Canyon decided to start a magazine. It would celebrate the history of the ancient place and its band of young Colorado River runners, reveling in the job’s excitement and occasional tedium and revealing the sometimes-deadly hazards of ferrying tourists […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A timeline of the desert tortoise’s slow and steady decline
Because the desert tortoise’s Mojave range is largely on federal land, conservationists believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should have better managed the animal’s recovery once it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. Instead, the species has steadily declined. 1976 Bureau of Land Management establishes 40-square-mile Desert Tortoise Natural Area in […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A review of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers The Brothers Kraynak 48 pages, softcover: $19.95. The Brothers Kraynak, 2013. animalcrackersbook.wix.com/animal-crackers With its colorful illustrations and hand-lettered look, Animal Crackers resembles a children’s book — until you look more closely and realize it’s far from a soothing bedtime read. The Brothers Kraynak, Scott, a visual artist and park ranger, and his brother, […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Ghost of a chance
We Live in WaterJess Walter192 pages, softcover: $14.99.Harper Perennial, 2013. In 13 sharp, witty stories, Spokane’s Jess Walter captures the gritty, quirky and heartbreaking lives of a variety of Pacific Northwesterners. Walter convincingly inhabits each character he creates, from a hungry meth addict wheeling an enormous TV toward a hoped-for pawnshop payout to a blue-collar […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Reading to maturity
Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and MisbehaviorBrandon R. Schrand221 pages, softcover:$16.95. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Brandon R. Schrand’s second book, Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior, retraces the Idaho author’s life through his obsessive love of literature. Each personal essay is paired with notes about a book that influenced […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Sandy Gebhards and Sierra Crane-Murdoch on life in the oilfields
For many workers left jobless or underemployed after the economic recession of 2008, the domestic oil and gas boom now sweeping the U.S. seems like a quick ticket to high paying work. For the latest edition of Sounds of the High Country, KDNK’s ongoing collaboration with High Country News, KDNK’s Nelson Harvey spoke with Sandy […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
A new report says we’re draining our aquifers faster than ever
The startling history of groundwater usage across the West.
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
New route to end Utah’s wilderness stalemate
Can one of the West’s most anti-federal lands lawmakers broker a mega-wilderness deal in the Beehive state?
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Pilgrim at Shit Creek
A mother comes to terms with her son’s childhood in the urban environment.
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Obama’s love letter to natural gas
The political and practical potential of gas in the climate fight
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
The politics of the possible
In the late 1980s, Western wilderness activists began changing their tactics: Stymied by increasingly anti-environmental elected officials opposed to any new wilderness, they decided to bypass local politicians and “nationalize” the issue. In Utah, led by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, they pushed “America’s Redrock Wilderness Act,” a bill that would protect a whopping 9.4 […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Is the Rainbow Gathering a natural disaster?
THE WEST Sizzling, blistering, brutal: Whatever adjective you use to describe the West’s recent heat wave, it’s not strong enough. Normally cool places like Portland and Seattle hit the 90s. Phoenix soared above 104 every day in June, reaching 119 once, and a few nights the low was a baking 91 degrees. Rattlesnakes huddled in […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Report from the summer HCN board meeting
High Country News‘ board of directors met in our hometown of Paonia, Colo. at the end of May, to assess the nonprofit’s health, discuss our prospects, and savor the Western Slope’s beauty. The news was good: HCN continues to expand its reach — our website, hcn.org, saw one-third more visitors in the first quarter of […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Stakeholders
Ashley KorenblatMoab mountain-bike outfitter and public-lands consultant “Folks in the rural West see kids in Grand Junction driving trucks for Halliburton making $80,000 a year. They see these jobs as good jobs, but they aren’t going to last. (Utah Republican Rep. Jason) Chaffetz has said, ‘We wouldn’t want to do anything now that would prevent […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
A half-empty future
I agree with the author’s pessimism (“The Rocky Mountain Front blues,” HCN, 6/24/13). Improvements in energy efficiency alone aren’t enough. What can help is to leave the oil, gas and coal in the ground and to permanently protect the associated lands from development. However, I wonder if any form of “permanent protection” will be able […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Frontier Justice: A review of Little Century
Little CenturyAnna Keesey336 pages, paperback:$16.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. When Esther Chambers moves to central Oregon from Chicago in 1896, she finds herself caught in a range war between cattle ranchers and sheepherders. Anna Keesey’s elegant debut novel, Little Century, resurrects the complex West of those early days, in prose that captures the rhythms and […]