WYOMING Spring really is around the corner, says longtime “Far Afield” columnist Bert Raynes in the Jackson Hole News&Guide. With keen eyes, he’s observed some of the season’s earliest manifestations: “Coyotes in pairs and in groups … Ravens in mock pursuits. Bald eagles carrying nest materials, horned and great gray owls calling, dippers in noisy, […]
Departments
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
3:10 to Baghdad
To prepare for combat halfway around the world, the military looks to Yuma’s desert laboratory
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Breaking the silence of suicide
Why is High Country News writing about mental illness and suicide? Many of you are probably asking yourselves that question right about now. After all, suicide has nothing to do with public lands, natural resources, endangered wildlife or environmentalism. And of course it has nothing to do with Western culture. Or does it? The West’s […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Dear friends
POETRY CORNER We usually focus on hard-hitting news about the West, not sonnets and blank verse. But to lighten things up, we thought we’d share a couple of poems we recently received from readers. Subscriber Susanne Twight-Alexander of Eugene, Ore., sent us verses inspired by her reading of Home Ground. The book, edited by Barry […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Seeking the Water Jackpot
For almost a century, the Navajo Tribe has been left out of the Colorado River water game. Now, they’re ready to play their hand.
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Two weeks in the West
Tired of smog-ridden suburban sprawl and strip malls? Perhaps it’s time to escape to one of the West’s national forests, parks or other sundry public lands for a deep, calming breath of fresh air. But even that Western staple is becoming as hard to find as affordable real estate in a ski town. The federal […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Getting the salt out
About five times a year we fly a small private plane from Arizona to California and back, and our route often takes us just to the north of the Salton Sea (HCN, 3/03/08). We’ve often wondered what it’s like on the ground. Now we know, and we don’t need to land to see it for […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Bush brings more green into the green movement
“Bush has been good to us,” says Kevin Lind, director of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a small Wyoming environmental group that pressures coalbed-methane drillers to behave responsibly. Lind doesn’t mean that President George W. Bush has suddenly become benevolent or relaxed his hard-line anti-green stance. Rather, he means that during Bush’s reign in […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Homeward bound
I was touched by Ana Maria Spagna’s essay, “Staying Put” (HCN, 3/03/08). As parents to two elderly-but-still-healthy, but nonetheless dependent and emotionally needy cats, we stay home quite a bit. And I’ve been hoping for a long time to hear someone in authority, or aspiring to authority, suggest to the American people that we might […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Heard Around the West
UTAH Even after he was caught making an outrageously racist remark, Republican state Sen. Chris Buttars refused to resign. Buttars had criticized a revenue-sharing bill for school districts, saying, “This baby is black, I’ll tell you. This is a dark and ugly thing.” Buttars said he was sorry, but he apologized only after the Senate […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Block that mine
I was pleased to read your article “Reluctant Boomtown,” which focused on the multitude of problems connected with the possible return of copper mining to the town of Superior, Ariz. (HCN, 2/18/08). It seems that in Superior some residents favor the mine and some oppose it. You briefly mention another proposal, on the oak and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Geothermal is no joke
What a pleasant surprise to read James Yearling’s informative piece about geothermal energy (HCN, 2/18/08). As a volcanologist who spent much of his 32-year career researching geothermal resources for the U.S. Geological Survey, I’m used to seeing geothermal treated like the comedian Rodney Dangerfield … getting no respect. This lack of respect is in spite […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
(Man-made) smoke gets in your eyes
Richard Halsey, discussed in Judith Lewis’ story “The Chaparralian,” should not assume that because lightning-caused fires in coastal California are rare, all fire there is historically rare (HCN, 2/04/08). In his book Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness, anthropologist Omer C. Stewart argues persuasively, using documentation and physical evidence, that for thousands of […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Finding beauty in devastation
Chris Peterson might be the best wildlife photographer you’ve never heard of. With quiet effort over many years of working for the Hungry Horse News, a weekly based in Columbia Falls, Mont., Peterson has honed his craft – stalking birds, bears, gravity-defying mountain goats and the other denizens of Glacier National Park. He captures them […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Remembering our wildness
What’s so great about being human? Granted, we are, as author Craig Childs acknowledges, “members of a species famous for road building, artwork, and claims of superiority … able to ask many questions and give voluminous answers.” We invented the wheel and the Internet, the vacuum cleaner and the Clapper. But in his latest work, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
From the backcountry to the building zoo
The summer after graduating from college, we shared the best job in the world. Armed with a GPS unit, a digital camera and the keys to an electric-blue Dodge Durango, we were charged with tracking down and evaluating the condition of historic structures in Yosemite National Park. Since no map existed of the nearly 700 […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Stay in the Hunt
Jim Posewitz believes the hunters’ nose-to-the-ground ethic can save the planet
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Falling off the heat ladder
Or … Daniel Boone never dug a snow cave
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
The elephant that was left out of the room …
When you read Matt Jenkins’ cover story in this issue, there’s a good chance you’ll be a bit surprised and even somewhat outraged. You’ll learn that hundreds of homes on the Navajo Nation are without running water, despite the fact that, no matter how you slice it, the tribe has rights to a substantial piece […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Dear friends
WELCOME, SARAH GILMAN She’s baaaa-aaa-ck! We’re pleased to welcome former HCN intern Sarah Gilman as our new assistant editor. A Colorado native, Sarah was born and raised in Boulder. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and studio art at Whitman College in Washington state in 2004. The pull of the Rocky Mountains was too […]