A visit to the heart of the Sagebrush Rebellion
Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Two freshmen from Arizona blasted
Dear HCN, Two freshmen Republican members of Don Young’s House Resource Committee from Arizona are working day and night to extend that committee’s endangered species listing moratorium (HCN, 7/24/95). If these men had their way, they would be publishing menus for cooking the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. Arizona congressmen John Shadegg and J.D. Hayworth […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Advice from Jim Stiles
Dear HCN, I’d like to respond to William Corcoran’s attack on guidebook critics like myself (HCN, 10/2/95). Mr. Corcoran says I should spend more of my energy on Planned Parenthood “instead of preaching perfection to an imperfect world” and in part he’s right. The fact is, there are just too damn many people out there. […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
On Stephen Lyons’ knee-jerk reactions
Dear HCN, I was starting to get bored reading another superficial diatribe – Stephen Lyons’ “Have a Kokopelli Day” (HCN, 9/18/95) – against the new colonizers of the West and indigenous imagery. I perked up, however, at the reference to the picture in the Patagonia catalog of Norbu with his donkeys “laden to the hilt, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Shh… don’t tell, can be a good defense
Dear HCN, I lived and worked in and near Zion Canyon for 12 years, and during that time the two old pioneer towns at the mouth of the canyon experienced rapidly rising population pressures, both from visitors and new residents. Most of the work available in the canyon entailed contact with a portion of the […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Saving salmon
Saving Salmon Billy Frank, chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, said it was now or never: “You going to wait until the last salmon is gone from the last spawning bed?” Frank was speaking at a ceremony in Seattle, Wash., marking the formation of For the Sake of Salmon, an organization of Northwest government, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Buy some shorts: Save a salamander
BUY SOME SHORTS: SAVE A SALAMANDER All 50 state wildlife agencies have joined a campaign to add user fees to outdoor products. Their aim: to save wildlife that isn’t hunted or endangered but still in need of habitat. The International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and seven conservation groups, including the World Wildlife Fund […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Peak preserved
PEAK PRESERVED Hikers on the summit of 13,462-foot Treasury Mountain, near Crested Butte, Colo., may not have known it, but until recently they were standing on private property. That changed Aug. 21 when the Wilderness Land Trust purchased 200 acres of private land inside the Raggeds and Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness areas. Much of the land, […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Life on the edge
LIFE ON THE EDGE The joke is that California went from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilization. A new book demonstrates otherwise. Life on the Edge: A Guide to California’s Endangered Natural Resources is a rarity: a work of coffee-table beauty and quality that tells a wonderful, although heartbreaking, story. It is a story […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
The exhaustion of a metaphor
THE EXHAUSTION OF A METAPHOR Skinheads in the Northwest, migrants pouring into California, 1,000 American factories just over the border in Mexico, coffee vendors in Seattle: Are these images of the Western frontier? Journalist Richard Rodriguez says they are, and they’re replacing the old idea of a land without limits. He will consider this transformation […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Just ask the loggers
Though environmentalists feared the worst when President Clinton signed a controversial timber-salvage law this summer, the Forest Service told them not to worry: The agency would take every precaution to protect the environment. A memo sent to regional foresters Sept. 21 from the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., suggests otherwise. Citing a lack of government […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Alberta proves deadly for wolves
Though the wolf population in northern Canada is strong, southwestern Alberta – with ranch land bordering on wilderness – is becoming a killing ground for wolves. Biologists on both sides of the border fear that if the open shooting season there continues, the 100 or so wolves that have migrated on their own into western […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Public lands for needy ski resorts
In Summit County, Colo., where housing prices force ski area service workers into trailer parks and long commutes (HCN, 4/17/95), a national forest supervisor has proposed a solution. He is Sonny LaSalle, who says the Forest Service could offer some of its public land to ski areas or other local businesses to build low-cost rental […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
ATVs shred redds
If endangered salmon trying to reach central Idaho didn’t have enough to worry about, now they need to dodge tires. Over the Labor Day weekend, drivers of all-terrain vehicles blasted through two miles of prime spawning grounds for salmon and bull trout along the upper Salmon River. The marauders tore up gravel and algae in […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
From sawing logs to serving cappuccino?
One hundred and forty-two years ago, a timber company built a sawmill and the town to operate it, Port Gamble, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, Wash. This October, the nation’s oldest continually operating sawmill is closing. The company, Pope & Talbot, that built the mill and now leases it from Pope Resources Co., says […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Dam project could get a free ride
A Colorado senator wants to make sure the controversial and long-delayed Animas-La Plata water project begins next year. Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell hopes to attach a rider to an appropriations bill that requires Congress to proceed with dam construction “notwithstanding any other provisions of the law.” The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, which has […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Looking for a quiet, old neighborhood?
If a proposal by Utah’s Trust Lands Administration goes through, state-owned lots containing Native American ruins will go on the block to provide money for public schools. One lot includes an Anasazi house structure probably dating to the time of Christ; another contains a Fremont culture dwelling dating back 1,000 years. State officials say they […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Timber sales are throwbacks to beastly days
Though the science of forestry has advanced over the past decade, green timber sales in forests west of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon don’t show it. Take the Roman Dunn timber sale, a tract of old-growth Douglas fir managed by the Bureau of Land Management along the central coast of Oregon near Eugene. A […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Bears forced to defer to cows
A plan by Wyoming officials to relocate two grizzly bears with a taste for beef has environmentalists concerned. They say cows are taking precedence over bears in important grizzly habitat near Jackson, Wyo. In mid-September, Wyoming officials decided to move one bear from a grazing allotment inside Grand Teton National Park and another from the […]
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Saying please at Devils Tower
Rock climbers routinely conquer obstacles and they don’t take kindly to “no.” But the conflict between rock climbers and Native American tribes over Devils Tower in Wyoming may be easing, thanks to a voluntary climbing ban. The National Park Service says 85 percent of the tower’s climbers complied with the trial ban in June. The […]