In recent years, I witnessed the battle over re-licensing of four dams on the Klamath River, which runs from Oregon’s high desert country to the redwood and Doug fir forests of the California coast. This watershed is my home, and it filled me with hope that dam removal could bring salmon to reaches of river […]
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Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Respect for our (female) elders
Thanks for the article on the inspirational and tenacious Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). I work for The Wilderness Society and elders like Debbie, Johanna Wald of the Natural Resources Defense Council and volunteer Marge Sill with the Sierra Club in Reno are the inspiration for me and so many other women in the movement. While […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
All in not-so-good taste
This is my first time writing in to comment on an HCN story and what finally prompted me was not the contentious, passionate piece that I figured would inspire me to put fingers to keyboard. Instead, it was the slightly naughty, indulgent, but thoroughly invigorating essay about rock rolling (HCN, 5/2/11). I read the story […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Indebted to Debbie
Kudos on your terrific article about Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). Those who have worked to protect land, water and wildlife with Debbie throughout her career know how talented she is and how much she has accomplished. All who love the West’s wild lands are indebted to Debbie.Johanna WaldSan Francisco, California This article appeared in the […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Three Tribes, a Dam and a Diabetes Epidemic
Herbert Wilson came to North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in 1954, to a tiny town called Elbowoods, tucked above the Missouri River in a bucolic patchwork of riverside willows, cottonwoods and fields. A Vermont-bred 33-year-old, fresh from Harvard and a tour as a WWII bombardier, Wilson was the new, sole doctor for the reservation’s […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Where has Montana’s water gone?
An old compact may not be enough to keep the Tongue River from running dry
Posted inHeard Around the West
Upholding the right to take naps
NORTHERN ROCKIES There are some photos you really don’t want to take. One is an extreme close-up of a quiescent Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park — the kind of photo you’d get by standing as close as possible and pointing your camera down at its small pool of water — just before the geyser […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Wild lands by any other name
The quarter-billion acres of mostly arid territory overseen by the federal Bureau of Land Management have become an unlikely battleground in the war over wilderness. Last December, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the BLM to identify any “lands with wilderness characteristics,” and, when appropriate, protect them as designated “wild lands.” Salazar’s order in full is […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
The Garrison Dam: a history
Author Paul VanDevelder, who penned the book Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial that Forged a Nation, a history of the three tribes flooded by the Garrison Dam, speaks on the U.S. government’s plan to dam the Missouri River and flood native lands. VanDevelder is also the author of Savages and Scoundrels: […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Get rid of the grass, or else
For years, I owned vacant beachfront property in California. Every February I would receive notice from the local fire department to weed my property and make certain there was no pampas grass (HCN, 4/18/11) on it, else the fire department would do it for me and charge an outrageous fee. I was impressed that the […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Let’s set the record straight
Never have I ever said the river was dead — sleeping, maybe, resting, but never dead. Neither am I, yet — that’s why you’re getting my rebuttal to Craig Childs’ very fine story, “Unstoppable River” (HCN, 4/18/11). I think Childs must have gotten his notes scrambled and turned his pages to Floyd Dominy instead. He […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Diabetes isn’t destiny
“I want to tell Native kids that they’re not sentenced to get diabetes. They have a choice,” says Notah Begay III, a Native American professional golfer who was interviewed recently on National Public Radio’s Native America Calling. The statistics are alarming. Diabetes has increased in every segment of American society over the past few decades, […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Thanks, Michael!
I have had the unique opportunity to work under Dr. Michael Ceballos at the Native American Research lab at the University of Montana for three years (HCN, 5/2/11). I am half Puerto Rican and half Native American (enrolled). I grew up very much immersed in both of my cultural backgrounds. Being Native American is more […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
The year in water
La Niña ruled the West’s weather this winter, and states now sitting on lavish snowpacks couldn’t be happier. Cooler surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific are responsible for the high precipitation rates in California, the Northwest and Intermountain West. Those snowpacks are expected to melt at a leisurely rate, buoying streamflows throughout the summer. The […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Viva la independent press!
High Country News was just nominated for two of the 22nd Annual Utne Independent Press awards. Utne, which curates the best of the alternative and independent press in its bimonthly magazine and website, has put us in the running in the General Excellence and Environmental Coverage categories. The awards, notes Utne‘s press release, are “designed […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Are you an Indian?
Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation LifeJim Kristofic256 pages, hardcover: $26.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2011. Despite his light-brown curls and pale face, Jim Kristofic gets asked this question all the time, even though he no longer lives on the Navajo Reservation. Now 29 and back in his native Pennsylvania, he teaches and tells stories […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
The painful beauty of love
In This Light: New and Selected StoriesMelanie Rae Thon256 pages, softcover: $15.Graywolf Press, 2011. Utah author Melanie Rae Thon maintains a seat beside fellow literary powerhouses Annie Proulx and Maile Meloy as she paints a portrait of a West that is at once desolate and tender. Written in fierce and unflinching prose, the stories in […]
