Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and MisbehaviorBrandon R. Schrand221 pages, softcover:$16.95. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Brandon R. Schrand’s second book, Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior, retraces the Idaho author’s life through his obsessive love of literature. Each personal essay is paired with notes about a book that influenced […]
Reading to maturity
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Indefensible space
Thanks for a clear, well-reasoned argument on a controversial issue (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Unfortunately, whole communities are nearly indefensible because they were settled without much thought for fire, floods and the like. It is one thing to stand down from an indefensible house or two, or a smaller fire. But as […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Flume fever: a monument to gold mining history is reconstructed
A hanging flume, attached to a canyon wall, captures the imagination of locals and heritage tourists alike.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Ghost of a chance
We Live in WaterJess Walter192 pages, softcover: $14.99.Harper Perennial, 2013. In 13 sharp, witty stories, Spokane’s Jess Walter captures the gritty, quirky and heartbreaking lives of a variety of Pacific Northwesterners. Walter convincingly inhabits each character he creates, from a hungry meth addict wheeling an enormous TV toward a hoped-for pawnshop payout to a blue-collar […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Fracking fashionistas
Oil and gas workers once had few options for on-the-job fashion: standard street wear or heavy-duty firefighting gear. Flame-retardant clothing was bulky, expensive and hot, but the alternative — jeans and T-shirts — proved dangerous in environments where explosions and fires can be all in a day’s work. In 2010, the Occupational Safety and Health […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
‘Firefighting is not war’
John Maclean’s statement that thousands of young firefighters go out every year with the “implicit” understanding that they will fight harder — and take greater risks — when homes are threatened concerns me (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Interagency fire programs have been trying to change that mentality; standards and orders have been […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
En-lightning statistics
Over two days in mid-July, an elderly Colorado woman, 10 farmworkers and three Montana hikers were hit by lightning — and lived to tell about it. Lightning fatalities in the U.S. have decreased by 75 percent since 1968, partly because of better medical access, more education and safer buildings, but largely because fewer Americans farm […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Conservation and affordable housing can coexist
I appreciated the nuanced description of Jackson’s affordable housing issues in “Paradise at a Price” (HCN, 6/10/13). I serve on the boards of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, and both are concerned that some people may not read past the statement that “conservation goals collide with the need […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Climate-forced water planning in Washington’s Yakima Valley
Prepping for future climate change means fixing past mistakes.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A timeline of the desert tortoise’s slow and steady decline
Because the desert tortoise’s Mojave range is largely on federal land, conservationists believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should have better managed the animal’s recovery once it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. Instead, the species has steadily declined. 1976 Bureau of Land Management establishes 40-square-mile Desert Tortoise Natural Area in […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A review of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers The Brothers Kraynak 48 pages, softcover: $19.95. The Brothers Kraynak, 2013. animalcrackersbook.wix.com/animal-crackers With its colorful illustrations and hand-lettered look, Animal Crackers resembles a children’s book — until you look more closely and realize it’s far from a soothing bedtime read. The Brothers Kraynak, Scott, a visual artist and park ranger, and his brother, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Arid lands bibliopedestrianism
I’ll admit that those of us who live in remote desert places tend to be idiosyncratic, though it is unclear to me whether the weird are attracted to the wild, dry country or if we are instead sculpted by it. And when you live in relative isolation—and in a physical environment that conspires with that […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Sandy Gebhards and Sierra Crane-Murdoch on life in the oilfields
For many workers left jobless or underemployed after the economic recession of 2008, the domestic oil and gas boom now sweeping the U.S. seems like a quick ticket to high paying work. For the latest edition of Sounds of the High Country, KDNK’s ongoing collaboration with High Country News, KDNK’s Nelson Harvey spoke with Sandy […]
Posted inGoat
Senate considers new toxins regulations, but states resist
For nearly six hours on Wednesday, members of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee gathered to hear comments about a bill that could overhaul the EPA’s ability to regulate toxic chemicals. Hailed by a panelist from West Virginia as “the best, perhaps last, chance to reform” the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the new […]
Posted inGoat
Seven days to fund an anthology of Ed Quillen’s wise, curmudgeonly writing
Want to help ensure that the West will never forget one of its wisest and most unique voices, writer Ed Quillen? Consider chipping into this Kickstarter project to anthologize his work. Ed died last year on June 3, at his home in Salida, Colo. “For nearly 30 years, Ed had written about the region’s communities […]
Posted inWotr
Thank you, James Watt, for all you did for Greater Yellowstone
An eccentric secretary of Interior remembered for his unlikely conservation legacy.
Posted inGoat
Are the West’s energy fields the last bastion of upward mobility?
Imagine, for a moment, a child born in Gallup or Tohatchi or Church Rock, NM. We’ll call him Jonny Gallup. He’s an average, healthy kid, but life’s not easy. His mom works at a mini-mart gas station, and his father does odd jobs but has a tough time finding anything stable. Combined, they usually make […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
A new report says we’re draining our aquifers faster than ever
The startling history of groundwater usage across the West.
Posted inGoat
New pesticides from the Central Valley found in remote Sierra Nevada frogs
Amphibians are vanishing at an alarming rate, even from areas we think of as pristine and protected. California’s Sierra Nevada is a prime example of this global problem—five out of seven amphibian species there are threatened. Researchers are still trying to pinpoint exactly why ponds that once held mountain yellow-legged frogs or California red-legged frogs […]