As wildfires and drought return year after year to the West, some communities bear the brunt more than others. In this issue’s feature, Contributing Editor Cally Carswell reflects on whether she should stay in a place experiencing climate change as rapidly as Santa Fe, New Mexico, and what it means to make a home there. Assistant Editor Emily Benson looks at another facet of climate change in the Southwest, how it no longer faces a drought but a steady aridification, and how word changes may help change water-use behavior. This issue also explores how rural communities in Montana are dealing with mental health crises, and more.
In this rapaciously dry year, a quiet question grows louder: What are we doing here?
Drought, dread and family in the American Southwest.
When climate change hits home
Northern New Mexicans weigh their future in a drying climate.
Welcome to our new intern
The annual Cherry Days Festival brought hot temperatures and more visitors.
The desert in our dreams of empire
Flood and drought have shaped the West, and humans are often unprepared.
Fleeing wolves; coal and water; California crash
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
A never-ending fight
Congratulations to Anna V. Smith on her great article (“Reclaiming the Klamath,” HCN, 6/11/18). It’s really well done. I was a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managing the Klamath River Restoration Program from 1975 to 1980, and I worked closely with the Yurok Tribe, gathering salmon harvest and population data on the…
Gorilla in the room
“Pay for Prey” (HCN, 7/23/18), written by Gloria Dickie, nicely detailed Oregon’s efforts to manage both ranchers and wolves. Economic compensation programs exist in other Western states grappling with ongoing wolf colonization. Concerns raised in both camps with regard to data accuracy and program graft also persist. Still, cultural divides have always best clarified this issue,…
The long view
Thank you, Anna V. Smith, for your article “Reclaiming the Klamath” (HCN, 6/11/18). And thank you, Amy Cordalis, for your hard work toward this end. A recreation outreach meeting was held in Copco, California, on June 12 by the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. Four community liaisons gave a presentation to an unfriendly, disruptive audience. Dam…
The population problem
I was touched and saddened by Ben Long’s eloquent lament on the extinction of the Selkirk caribou (“A quiet goodbye to the Selkirk caribou,” HCN, 5/28/18). He rightly points out the necessity of ecosystem services provided by healthy forests to avoid the “emergency room” of the Endangered Species Act. He closes by wishing that America…
The Second Coming of Christ in southern Idaho
A new memoir reflects on an isolated, religious upbringing in a survivalist Mormon family.
The golden age of rock climbing
Black and white photos capture the people behind the humble beginnings of the sport.
After the mountain yellow-legged frog disappeared
A wildlife biologist returns to a childhood stomping ground, devoid of its once-plentiful amphibians.
Pawnee comic Howie Echo-Hawk wants to see you squirm
Echo-Hawk’s ‘punishment comedy’ draws on his experiences as an Indigenous man living in Seattle.
Montanans sightsee at a political circus
President Donald Trump’s spectacle draws a crowd, for now.
Neighbors on call to help care for one another
Community health programs are thriving in Haiti, Montana and the Navajo Nation.
Montana is losing essential mental health services
As the state’s mental health system faces an uncertain future, experts encourage crisis prevention.
Climate change is making it harder to revive damaged land
Instead of restoring the past, ecologists are increasingly focused on the future.
In the Southwest, ‘drought’ doesn’t tell the whole story
Why ‘aridification’ is a better term for our new, more parched reality.