Relearning history in all its complexity

Remember that fourth-grade Thanksgiving pageant, the big feast with Indians providing most of the food? Squanto was there, kindly teaching the Pilgrims how to put a fish in a hole to grow corn and beans and squash. Somehow I don’t remember learning that Squanto — more properly “Tisquantum”— was taken to England and then abducted […]

With Thanksgiving near, it’s the season to be grateful and take stock of our situation. In that spirit, here’s some of what I’ve been thinking about. First, as we conclude our celebration of the golden anniversary of the Wilderness Act, let’s give a cheer to the 88th U.S. Congress, which, in 1964, passed the law […]

The following is just a sample of what public-land managers have encountered while on the job in the last few years: On a dirt road in Arizona, a man who was paranoid about the federal government aimed a rifle at federal rangers and opened fire. In California, a shooter targeted a firefighter in a national […]

John Hickenlooper, the recently re-elected (by a whisker) governor of Colorado, should be called the new “silver fox” for his work on water sharing, in memory of Delphus Carpenter, who earned that title back in 1922. That year, Carpenter cajoled seven Western states into signing the historic agreement that divvied up the Colorado River. Hickenlooper […]

Only God can make a tree, but only Congress can designate a wilderness, and the Wilderness Act, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, became the law it is today largely because a powerful Colorado congressman, Wayne Aspinall, blocked the legislation in his committee over and over again. His stubborn opposition, however, gave birth to […]

I’m biased in favor of flowing rivers, yet my favorite, the Rio Grande, has been anything but flowing lately. Over the past few years, it’s been drying up downstream of Albuquerque every irrigation season between mid-June and Halloween. It seems odd to say it, but the river hasn’t the right to its own water. Instead, […]