Window Rock, Arizona The Navajo Nation Council Chamber is a rounded bit of beauty inspired by the traditional Navajo hogan. It’s set against a natural arch of sandstone that gives Window Rock its name, a wide and frequently dramatic sky, and temporary government-office barracks that have been at their task several decades too long. The […]
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Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
River rafting — no car required
One reason I live in the West is that taking a car or plane to enjoy nature always struck me as paradoxical. How can a hiker, biker, skier or camper claim to “leave no trace” when his or her carbon footprint exceeds Bigfoot’s by several orders of magnitude? No, I said, let the Sherpas summit […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Bear-fighting poodles and Muslim dust storms
WASHINGTON Size mattered not a whit during a backyard encounter in the town of Kirkland, in northwest Washington, that pitted a “yapping teacup poodle” against a 200-pound black bear, reports The Week magazine. The tiny dog acted so ferocious that the bear climbed a tree, leaped into an adjoining yard and hightailed it back to […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Invasion of the feral pigs
Feral pigs are invading New Mexico and other Western states, but biologists are working hard to stop them.
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Down and out in the West
With all this talk of a possible double-dip recession, it’s disheartening to note that Western unemployment rates are still sky-high from the last economic crisis. Nevada leads the country for the 14th straight month, due to its almost complete reliance on the still-pretty-dilapidated housing, gaming and tourism industries.“Construction was a larger share of our economy […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Idaho: The CAFO state?
In 2008, California voters granted egg-laying hens the right to enough space to lie down, stand up, and stretch their wings. Egg farmers warned that the measure would increase costs, forcing them to leave the state to compete. And Idaho hastened to woo the would-be émigrés. “(Poultry is) a really great industry to have around,” […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Relying on Navajo guides
Twenty-some years ago, I joined a gaggle of other semi-adventurous tourists in Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Navajo Reservation. We climbed onto the open bed of a big “deuce and a half” — an old Army surplus two-and-a-half-ton truck — and took rudimentary seats. The driver shifted into gear, and six tires (on […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
The Taj Mahal, the pyramids – and HCN?
Sam Fox crossed visiting HCN off his personal “bucket list” when he came by our Paonia, Colo., office with Erin Drake. Sam pitched some cool story ideas and noted his successful track record — over the past decade he’s suggested other ideas that we’ve used for stories. The Fort Collins, Colo., duo chatted with Executive […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
A life in the wild
Wolfer: A MemoirCarter Niemeyer374 pages, softcover: $17.99.BottleFly Press, 2010. Former federal trapper and shooter Carter Niemeyer, the author of the memoir Wolfer, seems an unlikely advocate for wolves and other predators. A “wolfer,” after all, is a person who kills wolves, a job with its genesis in the great wildlife extermination campaigns that are as […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Adventuring on Colorado’s big peaks
I rank them by altitude and tackle them one set at a time: the 200 highest, then the tricentennials. I’m told I was the first woman to climb Colorado’s 100 highest peaks; mathematical precision makes the task seem manageable. There are 638 mountains in the Colorado Rockies over 13,000 feet high. I’d climb them all, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Rainbow gatherings and border art
WASHINGTON You have to hand it to the 12,000-to-15,000 people who traipse every summer to some national forest — usually in the West — where they live for a week as reunited friends who call themselves the Rainbow Family of Living Light. They’ve had 40 years of practice, so they’ve learned how to avoid leaving […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Barrow, Alaska: an unlikely boomtown
Richard Pak pilots an old green Land Rover along the gravel roads of Barrow, Alaska, as he does most every day. It’s June, but the air is raw and the sky is the color of impending snow, like ash poured into milk. He indicates a spot where a polar bear recently wandered up from the […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Cleaner, shmeaner
First, I commend HCN on the excellent article, “The Global West,” which skillfully presents how energy markets are affecting resource extraction in the West (HCN, 7/25/11). I’m going to get as many of my friends and family members to read it as I can. That said, it drove me nuts to read this in one […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Give us your bears and your energy
Chinese demand is also bad news for wildlife (HCN, 7/25/11). In Africa, thousands of Chinese are building railroads, highways and other projects while illegally exporting ivory. Elephants are being butchered in the thousands to meet this demand. In Russia, the Chinese will pay $50,000 for one dead, rare Siberian tiger. Apparently, they value tiger parts […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
In praise of prose
“The Global West” was well researched and beautifully written (HCN, 7/25/11). I hope the Atlantic and New Yorker crowd took notice, as the last three paragraphs of Thompson’s article could easily have qualified for their precious space. Also, thanks to the researchers who pulled together the astonishing inventory of extra-national participants in the exploitation of […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
A bad bargain
Your article “Fumigant fight” points out that, “without an effective replacement (for methyl bromide), growers could face lower yields, costing an estimated $100 million per year” (HCN, 7/25/11). However, the purchase and application of methyl iodide is not free. Farmers are interested in net profitability, not merely revenues. Perhaps, the real negative impact on pre-tax […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
A plunderer is a plunderer
Kudos to Jonathan Thompson for bringing attention to the growing plunder of Western resources by multinational corporations (HCN, 7/25/11). Not only are rare minerals being extracted at a record rate, more importantly, irreplaceable wilderness areas are being devastated in the process. And what about those American corporations that shamelessly violate and destroy our precious public […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
Not dead yet
“The timber industry, battered by environmental regulations and unfavorable economics, was wheezing a death rattle: In the two decades after the hippies arrived, logging in the county declined by 60 percent.” This is a bit of a pet peeve, I admit, but the timber industry in Humboldt county is not “dead.” It still contributes around […]
