Survival SkillsJean Ryan197 pages, paperback: $15.95.Ashland Creek, 2013. Early in Jean Ryan’s debut collection of stories, a woman in a wetsuit strokes an octopus’ head while it caresses her face with the tip of one arm. The scene illustrates one of the author’s favorite themes: We’re at our best, we humans, when we allow ourselves […]
Exploring the intersection of animal and human
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
Ed Quillen anthology available now
Last June, regular High Country News contributor, Denver Post columnist and dear friend Ed Quillen died suddenly. Now, his daughter, Abby Quillen, has compiled an eBook anthology, Dispatches from the High Country: Essays on the West from High Country News, available on Amazon Kindle and through Smashwords. She’s also gathered his best Denver Post columns […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
Can more oil extraction cut CO2 emissions from power plants?
Some environmentalists are getting behind enhanced oil recovery.
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
A tiny town gets a new name and a coyote joins a 5K race
THE WESTAs writer Jeremy Engdahl-Johnson puts it, “There were lots of ways to lose money during the government shutdown that choked off Grand Canyon river trips for 11 days in early October.” There were also unusual trickle-down effects, so to speak. A Flagstaff-based company called River Cans Clean disposes of most of the human waste […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
A review of West Coast: Bering to Baja
West Coast: Bering to Baja Photographs by David Freese, Foreword by Naomi Rosenblum with text by Simon Winchester, 191 pages, hardcover:$60. George F. Thompson Publishing, 2012. “I have always been drawn to transitional places,” writes photographer David Freese in West Coast: Bering to Baja. “For me, there is no more fascinating place on Earth than […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
A broader view on secession
As a Vermonter who lived out West for 10 years in my 20s, I have been a loyal High Country News subscriber since 1992, and was pleased to read Krista Langlois’ fine article about secession (“Breaking up is hard to do,” HCN, 11/11/13). I would like to offer a few additional observations. 1. Secession is […]
Posted inGoat
The Grand Canyon, temperature inversion and the worst parenting ever
I have two daughters, ages 12 and 14. They’ve lived in the Southwest for most of those years, and they’ve never seen the Grand Canyon. This, in my wife’s eyes at least, is a sin. My sin. “Why don’t you take them if it’s so important?” “Hey, you’re Mister Southwest guy. I took them to […]
Posted inGoat
Could the fight for Colorado’s Browns Canyon finally be over?
The struggle to protect Browns Canyon, a rugged stretch of the Arkansas River in central Colorado, has been waxing and waning since the area was first studied for wilderness designation in the 1970s. Several attempts to create a new federal wilderness have been floated since then, and though they’ve come tantalizingly close, none have yet […]
Posted inGoat
Negotiations speed up endangered-species listings
In northern Arizona, a tiny cactus, not more than 3.5 inches tall, lifts a creamy yellow flower above the desert rock each spring. Roughly 1,000 of these rare plants still grow, living 10 to 15 years and rising from the earth to flower each season before sinking back after fruiting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
On (not) being Jane Goodall
A writer wonders what it would be like to study the coati, a Southwestern cousin of the raccoon.
Posted inGoat
Fracking, public lands, ag bills to watch at the close of legislative year
There are just four days left before the legislative year ends and Congress calls it good – or mediocre, as it may be – for 2013. This Congress passed the fewest number of laws since 1947, earning the unfortunate title of “least productive in history.” So it should come as no surprise that several major pieces […]
Posted inWotr
Fracking in Utah’s Escalante canyons?
Powerless when a company comes to my small town.
Posted inGoat
Will drilling cost the Arctic its wildness?
In the dark of a far-north winter night, amidst 70-mph winds, the nine-member crew of the tugboat Alert released its towline and set the Kulluk oilrig adrift on heaving seas. Loaded with about 139,000 gallons of diesel and 12,000 gallons of combined lubrication oil and hydraulic fluid, the Kulluk ran aground off uninhabited Sitkalidak Island […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
A Colorado carpenter takes a chance on hemp
Can an agrarian insurrection revitalize this High Plains town?
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Speaking of Wild Horses
Why read the article when you can read the thread instead?
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
Hard lessons from the mighty salmon runs of Bristol Bay
The world’s longest ongoing salmon research reveals the astounding complexity of wild ecosystems.
Posted inGoat
Sin City’s downtown is on the brink of reinvention
“We must discard the view that environmentalism means living around trees and that urbanites should always fight to preserve a city’s physical past. We must stop idolizing home ownership, which favors suburban tract homes over high-rise apartments, and stop romanticizing rural villages. We should eschew the simplistic view that better long-distance communication will reduce our […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
A demographer predicts big changes for the West’s housing landscape
Are we all headed to “megapolitan” areas like the Wasatch Front and Sun Corridor?
