For Marilyn Bruya, the turning point came one February morning a few years ago when she gazed out the window of an airplane over western Montana and made a startling discovery. “There were more clearcuts than forests,” Bruya recalls, still amazed. By the time she returned home to Missoula, inspiration had bubbled into conviction. Ever […]
A new breed of artists depicts Montana – cyanide leach fields and all
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Heard around the West
Mountain guide Forrest McCarthy told us he had learned a valuable lesson recently: Assume nothing – absolutely nothing. He learned that while leading a couple up a mountain in Grand Teton National Park. The range, he told them, is a 40-mile-long block fault into which glaciers, over the eons, had carved the mountain peaks above […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Doomed park bill just a tool of politicos
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As a young Italian girl once noted, names can be confusing. Take the name, “Presidio.” To the many millions who speak Spanish, it’s no name at all, merely a word for prison. To San Franciscans familiar with their city’s history, it’s the name of a fort the Spaniards built in 1776 when […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Yellowstone cutbacks bring out the politicians
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news story, “Strapped parks look for money.” When Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Mike Finley started to feel the budget pinch this summer, he made sure everyone knew about it. Finley closed a popular campground and two museums in Yellowstone, […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Strapped parks look for money
Visitors who go to Nevada’s Great Basin National Park to tour limestone caves and gawk at wind-twisted bristlecone pines may not notice anything different this summer. Campground gates and visitors’ center doors are open as usual. Rangers lead hikes to Alpine Lake each morning, and lecture campers in the evenings about everything from bats to […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
A green Republican makes a run
Physician Robin Silver of Phoenix is known as an uncompromising environmentalist. Most recently, he forced the federal government to list the Mexican spotted owl as “threatened,” thereby stopping logging in the Southwest (HCN, 9/4/95). He has also fought against construction of a series of telescopes on Arizona’s Mount Graham (HCN, 7/24/95). So some Republicans may […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dead salmon do more than stink
Not so long ago, when great runs of wild salmon still ruled the Northwest, fish carcasses littered the banks of streams each spawning season. Scientists have long suspected that these rotting salmon helped fuel the food chain. But they didn’t know to what extent. Now, studies by Weyerhaeuser Co. fish biologist Bob Bilby have shown […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
New rules seek to cap canyon flights
GRAND CANYON, Ariz. – Nearly 10 years ago, when Congress set a national goal to restore natural quiet here, surveys indicated that only 43 percent of the park was unaffected by aircraft noise. Now only 31 percent of the park is considered quiet, defined as free from aircraft noise at least 75 percent of the […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dear Friends
A celebration of essayists We are not calling this issue devoted mostly to essays “special,” but it certainly feels that way. It is the first time we have taken such a large break from straight reporting to feature stories that stem from personal experience in the West. Staff debated the idea and finally plunged. An […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Group sues to stamp out tolerance and diversity
When the National Park Service shows some sensitivity to the religious needs of Native Americans, stomp it. And be sure to also grind a heel into American Indian religious liberty. That’s the way Mountain States Legal Foundation in Denver apparently views it. Last month, the foundation filed a lawsuit against the Park Service for respecting […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Marching to stop a Montana mine
If a successful protest is any kind of bellwether, Montana’s long tolerance of mining may be coming to an end. When a group composed mostly of Native Americans marched 600 miles from South Dakota to Montana to protest a gold mine last June, people from local communities supported them every step of the way. March […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Animas-La Plata hits a wall in the House
An attempt last year in the House to halt funding for the Animas-La Plata dam project in southern Colorado failed by a miserable 151-275. This year, a second try slipped by 221-200. What changed the 75 or so Representatives’ minds? Election year, says Jeffrey Stier, spokesman for Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who led the successful […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Feds set “terrible precedent’ with Kolob Canyon settlement
The survivors of an outing that left two Explorer Scout leaders dead in Utah’s Kolob Canyon will get more than $2 million from an out-of-court settlement with public agencies. David Fleischer and LeRoy Kim Ellis drowned in July 1993 while descending a narrow slot canyon near Zion National Park. A surviving Scout leader, four of […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
BIA comes under fire – again
In one of the largest class action suits ever filed against the federal government, 300,000 American Indians have demanded a full statement of their Individual Indian Money accounts that are managed, much like a bank, by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “They have no idea how much has been collected from the companies that use […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
A cellular call of the wild
A trip into the wilds of Yellowstone National Park just got tamer. Hikers can now toss a cellular phone into their backpacks. “What’s next, cable?” asked a grubby Los Angeles resident fresh in from a couple of nights in the forest, where he spotted one of the park’s fabled grizzly bears. Park officials say the […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
In defense of Stegner’s Powell
Dear HCN, Karl Hess tells us, in “Imagine a West Without Heroes,” that the West would best be managed by New Westerners and not by federalists, justifying his conclusion by portraying John Wesley Powell as a worn-out hero (HCN, 5/27/96). It seems that many Western writers prefer to wrestle with the ghost of Powell. Perhaps […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Will the real West please stand up?
Review by Joe B. Stevens We live by myths, by the stories we tell. If these are flawed, we’re in trouble. Writers such as the late Wallace Stegner have offered convincing arguments that many of our stories are flawed, that what we think is real gets confused with what we want reality to be. An […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Partners for an unspoiled place
The Greater San Juan Partnership sells a combative bumpersticker – -Keep It Country!’ – and a collaborative message: Newcomers and old-timers can work together to preserve the rural character of the southern Rockies. The fledgling partnership takes its inspiration from the San Juan Mountains watershed, which board member Todd Murchison calls the largest unspoiled place […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Getting wired in the Northwest
Northwest environmentalists eager to bust out of their Luddite stereotype now have a resource. It’s called ONE/Northwest, and it was recently formed to bring activists in the region up to speed on the internet and other electronic media. The nonprofit is working with the Oregon Conservation Network, a loose alliance of 70 environmental groups, to […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
If you’re looking for scarlet mormons
Tropical butterflies have landed in Colorado. The Butterfly Pavilion and Insect Center just outside of Denver features scarlet mormons, zebra longwings and more than 100 other varieties that fly through glass-enclosed buildings. While at least 30 butterfly centers have emerged in the past decade – most of them associated with zoos – the 7,800-square-foot pavilion […]