On Oct. 9, biologists electrofishing in Grand Canyon National Park caught a razorback sucker — the first one seen in the park in 20 years. The endangered fish, known for its distinctive humpback, huge size (up to three feet long!) and long life (40-plus years!) was once common in the Colorado River and its tributaries. As […]
Endangered razorback sucker discovered in Grand Canyon
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Westerners’ presidential proclivities
The Democratic Party has taken a shine to the West of late, seeing the region as its best shot to grow the base. Indeed, changing demographics — rising populations of minorities and educated whites, and a declining white working class — have put a few formerly solid red states into play for Democrats in presidential […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Visitors from around the West
You may have noticed that the last two issues of HCN didn’t contain Dear Friends; we moved it online to get some extra space. You can catch up on our visitors, recent journalism awards and other announcements by visiting http://hcne.ws/PXudbz and http://hcne.ws/OTI73V. VISITORS As the weather cools and the leaves fall, we feel lucky to […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Redistricting pains in California and other states
Once every 10 years, after each U.S. Census, states must redraw political boundaries to reflect demographic changes, a process called redistricting. Districts must have equal populations and should not dilute minorities’ voting powers by splitting their vote. The process can become highly politicized, with parties jockeying to draw favorable districts and keep incumbents in office. […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Is the Latino electorate finally beginning to make its mark?
When Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., announced his retirement in 2011, pundits predicted the GOP would easily hold the seat this November. After all, Arizonans last chose a Democrat for Senate in 1988, when as The Wall Street Journal reminisced, “gasoline cost less than 90 cents a gallon … and stirrup pants were in.” Yet Democrat […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Collectivists for Christ!
Orderville, Utah, is a smattering of modest homes in a narrow valley on the banks of southern Utah’s Virgin River. It feels both overgrown and empty: Thousands of people pass through here daily on their way between Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, yet few ever stop. On a perfect September day in the thick […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Heated Conversations
Comments posted online in response to our Sept. 17 story “Fire fights“: There is really no question about Richard Hutto’s quote in this article, “the federal government is spending money thinning forests that have a long history of dense stands and severe fires.” But one should differentiate forest management at its interface with homes and […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Hages ride on
Actually, the Wayne Hage “taking” case is far from over (HCN, 9/17/2012, “One Sagebrush Rebellion flickers out — or does it?“). First, there are a number of significant findings by Judge Smith that were not overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Second, the Hages have filed a petition for rehearing […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
Economic engineering in the New West
The other night, my local irrigation ditch company held a meeting at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). I sat down on folding chairs with about 50 of my neighbors to hear from our elected board about by-law changes and progress on a federally-funded project to put much of our unlined ditch — hand dug […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
As goes Nevada, so goes the nation?
Updated 10/30/12 Twenty-seven days before the general election, northern Nevada state Sen. Greg Brower pleaded a case before a roomful of ardent conservatives that sounded suspiciously moderate. “We can’t survive without any taxes and regulation,” the Washoe County Republican told a women’s club at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks. He acknowledged that he considers power-sharing […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2012: Red State Rising
2012 Western ballot initiatives
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline 2012 Western ballot initiatives.
Posted inGoat
Binders full of newspaper endorsements
In the age of political Internet memes, which both entertain and influence voters, how important is a newspaper endorsement? The answer depends on who you ask. To voters, a newspaper endorsement may have little bearing on their vote, as NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflick reported. In interviews, a dozen voters suggested they put little to […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
Inside the orchard: A conversation with novelist Amanda Coplin
Amanda Coplin spent the first years of her life in Wenatchee, Wash., the self-proclaimed “Apple Capital of the World,” and was indelibly shaped by its rolling acres of fruit trees, and by her frequent visits to the apple and apricot orchard owned by her grandparents. Those sights and smells are powerfully evoked in her debut […]
Posted inWotr
Heading out of fall’s impending darkness
One day in October every year, I leave my home valley and make a pilgrimage up into Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. I am not seeking enlightenment, exactly. I am seeking simply light. My birthday falls on Oct. 10, long enough past the fall equinox that the ever-growing darkness of autumn can no longer be denied. Every […]
Posted inGoat
Utah tar sands project gets key go ahead
One Canadian company’s plan to extract oil from Utah’s tar sands just took a big step forward. In 2005, U.S. Oil Sands, a small Canadian company already active in Alberta, proposed a project to squeeze oil out of tar sands on Utah’s Tavaputs Plateau On Wednesday, the Utah Water Quality Board voted 9-2 to uphold […]
Posted inGoat
Amphibian alterations
Parasites have always filled me with fear. I still experience the occasional bout of night terrors when images of Guinea Worms wriggling out of weeping lesions in my flesh flicker across my dream state subconscious. Over the past few days, while working on a piece for the next issue of High Country News, I’ve become […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2012: Are you a local?
Already gone: a profile of Muscogee (Creek) poet Joy Harjo
The author of She Had Some Horses and In Mad Love and War discusses her new memoir, Crazy Brave.
Posted inWotr
A grisly death in Alaska
A man from San Diego was killed by a grizzly bear recently, on the Toklat River in Alaska on the same overcast day that my son and I played in the woods outside of our cabin, 30 miles away. The Toklat River bar is a place my family has often hiked, saturated in Denali’s scenery. […]