The West has always dealt with natural disasters, human trafficking and crime, but today those problems are taking on new forms. What happens when one of Alaska’s melting glaciers causes a landslide that sends a tsunami tearing through a fjord frequented by cruise ships and campers? And who would have guessed that a simple job advertisement would leave Chinese immigrants trapped in — and punished for — an illegal cannabis operation in New Mexico? A Montana-based company with close ties to the Trump administration is making billions on the border wall. A remote Native Alaska village prepares for the influx of rowdy workers who will be housed at a massive new gold mine’s man camp. It’s not all bad news: In Arizona, scientists are determined to reintroduce a rare desert orchid, while new wetlands in the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta could help an endangered fish. A new anthology explores contemporary communal living. The rural West might lack reliable health care, but its natural beauty is healing in other ways.
The Chinese immigrants trafficked on New Mexico’s weed farms
Migrant workers were trapped in the Southwest’s illicit cannabis boom and treated as criminals — until investigators began chasing their bosses.
Collapsing mountains in Alaska are causing massive tsunamis
Climate change is shrinking glaciers, destabilizing the state’s coastline and shaking its tourism industry.
Bears vs. backpacks, busted-up boulders, a sheepish spectacle and the Yoda of Love
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Canelo Hills ladies’-tresses grow only in the Southwest’s vanishing ciénegas. Can they be rooted there again?
Scientists restore an endangered orchid to Arizona’s desert wetland.
Apparitional
A poem by Joan Kane.
Can restoration save the Delta smelt?
In the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, new wetlands await the threatened fish.
Let’s go in on the American dream, together
Samantha Paige Rosen’s anthology offers communal living as affordability solution.
‘It’s OK to learn from your mistakes’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
Love letter to a blooming giant
What a single plant can tell us about humanity.
Meet the West’s new environmental reporters
The Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative launches this month.
Letters to the Editor, July 2026
Comments from readers.
What if the mountains are the medicine?
Why people stay in the rural West despite the health-care crisis.
Billions in border wall contracts are going to a Montana firm run by a Trump donor
Barnard Construction’s leadership donated over $1 million to the president’s campaign. They’re among the administration’s top wall contractors.