High Country News June 27, 2005
Feature
The Great Divide
A writer takes a 1,600-mile Greyhound bus ride from Salt Lake City into Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, and listens to the stories of the Westerners he meets
Editor's Note
Crossings
If there’s a theme in this summer reading issue, it’s that of crossings, an idea that really hit home when a group of people from Kazakhstan recently spent time at High Country News
Dear Friends
Dear friends
Skipped issue; corrections and clarifications to Write-Off on the Range and other stories; our mailbox runneth over
Uncommon Westerners
This mayor sees a different shade of green
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make his city environmentally sustainable
News
Writing a comment letter? Better make it good
The Bureau of Land Management is tightening its standards on what it considers worthwhile, "substantive" public comments from citizen activists
Follow-up
Army Corps of Engineers will have to release water from Columbia and Snake river dams to help salmon; Montana mining ban is not a property "taking"; kinks in plan to drill for natural gas at Colorado nuclear site.
Private landowners become lords of the public estate
A landowner locks a gate on a road into Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon, highlighting an increasingly bitter debate over access to public lands in the West
Suburbia blasts through a national monument
A rocky western escarpment and the Petroglyph National Monument have long held back Albuquerque’s sprawl, but now the Volcano Heights development is coming, and a controversial road through the monument may be built
Developer blocks trail to a famous 'fourteener'
Texas developer Rusty Nichols has barred public access to Wilson Peak, a Colorado "fourteener" popular with climbers
Frozen in time: Endangered species science
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it does not have to consider new scientific information about genetics when preparing recovery plans for rare species
Hungry sea lions put salmon-savers in a bind
California sea lions ate so many chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam this year that some fishermen are calling for the removal and even killing of the protected mammals
Factory wants to squeeze cheese underground
The Hilmar Cheese Company near Modesto, Calif., wants to dig a deep well to dispose of its salty, milky wastewater
Highway plans aim to keep habitat — and wildlife — in one place
The Washington State Department of Transportation is planning to build innovative wildlife passages and over-crossings on a 15-mile section of I-90 east of Seattle
Book Reviews
Wyoming's unsung wilderness heroes
In Ahead of Their Time, editors Broughton Coburn and Leila Bruno collect the stories of the heroes and heroines of the Wyoming wilderness movement
A tasty history of the Southwest
In Gardens of New Spain, William W. Dunmire tells the story of how Mediterranean plants and foods came to North America and changed the way its inhabitants eat
Peering into the life of the prairie
Photos and drawings from Candace Savage’s Prairie: A Natural History give glimpses of a beautiful, diverse region
The more the West changes, the more it stays the same
In DeVoto’s West, Edward K. Muller has collected 22 of Bernard DeVoto’s entertaining and thought-provoking Harper’s magazine columns about the West
Sometimes it's hard to tell who the turkeys are
In Stalking the Big Bird, wildlife biologist Harley Shaw tells the story of his 27 years with the Arizona Game and Fish Department
Essays
Fury
The death of her old horse, Fury, leads a northern Colorado writer to think about the changing aspects – and the unchanging quirkiness – of her old hometowns of Bellvue and LaPorte
The Healing River
A writer considers what he’s learned from living on a rugged Western river in the New Mexico mountains
Heard Around the West
Heard Around the West
Giant-tire shortage; the rufous hummingbird "red menace"; preparing for death; potato problems; Spokes Spud Mr. Potato Head
