The three candidates look too formal for Montana, dressed in suits and neckties for the first debate in the state’s most important race this election season. But the setting is classic Montana: A pine-paneled room in a lodge on the edge of the Big Sky ski resort, beside a trout-filled river surrounded by mid-June wildflowers. […]
Who is Denny Rehberg, really?
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Mother nature’s hot heyday
I really think that proper defensible space during the High Park fire was a crapshoot (HCN, 8/6/12, ‘Lessons burned?’). The fire moved so fast, with the intense wind gusts, through such dry and dead vegetation, that even if you had 30 feet of defensible space, your house could have easily caught fire. I live in […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Money trumps prudence
The picture here is one of common sense and ethical behavior being given up and replaced with an attitude of do whatever it takes to make money (HCN, 8/6/12, ‘The Bakken’s shadow boom‘). Where do they think billions of gallons of polluted water are going to go when reinjected into the very same rock formations […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Misleading omissions
‘The Secret Gardens‘ is offensive and misleading in that it makes it seem as if the Coast Salish lived only in the past (HCN, 8/6/12). It makes no mention of the modern Coast Salish tribes who no doubt know a lot about these camas patches. Has botanist Madrona Murphy contacted any of the Duwamish, Jamestown, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Madrona Murphy responds
Unfortunately, camas cultivation in the San Juan archipelago effectively ended more than 150 years ago. All the same, this study was extensively informed by interviews with living Coast Salish families with ancestry in the islands or ties to the islands, as well as unpublished field notes of interviews conducted 25 to 65 years ago with […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
(Don’t) Let it burn
This summer, Forest Service firefighters are stomping out wildfires they might have let burn in other years. A ‘temporary’ policy change requires local foresters to get permission from their regional supervisors for anything but full suppression, owing to fears that the current hot, dry conditions could cause remote fires to rage out of control. And […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Adopt a biologist
One way outdoor-gear companies could help improve their image and be more effective would be to put some of the millions spent on advertising and sponsorships into conservation organizations (HCN, 7/23/12, ‘The Hardest Climb‘). Sponsor field biologists, conservation groups and field stations rather than athletes. Biologists use these companies’ equipment just as much, and often […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
A way out of California’s water morass?
This well-written piece accurately portrays the problems and solutions facing California’s beleaguered Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (HCN, 8/20/12, ‘Tunneling under California’s water wars‘). Current operations in the Delta have failed to provide water to family farmers and 25 million Californians, and failed to protect the region’s ecosystem. Doing nothing to improve this situation means more of […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Return to innocence: A review of Queen of America
Queen of AmericaLuis Alberto Urrea492 pages, softcover:$14.99.Little, Brown and Company, 2011. It’s hard to be a saint, but being a saint’s father, husband or friend can’t be easy, either. ‘Not all crosses are made of wood,’ as Luis Alberto Urrea observes in his novel Queen of America. It’s a sequel to his 2005 book, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
High Country News hires an associate designer
Andy Cullen, HCN‘s new associate designer, drove more than 2,000 miles to get to our office in Paonia, Colo., for his first day on the job. Andy, who earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism, with a concentration in photojournalism, in 2005 at Boston University, spent four years in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh and Mongolia […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Beyond ozone
Wintertime ozone is just one surprising air-quality problem that has appeared as gas fields balloon in size and creep closer to communities. “It’s possible that emissions have been there all along,” since the industry isn’t new, says Ramón Alvarez, an Environmental Defense Fund air-quality expert. But with drilling under increasing scrutiny, he says, “People are […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Book note: Valley of Shadows and Dreams
Valley of Shadows and Dreams Ken Light and Melanie Light, Foreword by Thomas Steinbeck 176 pages, hardcover: $40. Heyday Books, 2012. ‘Except for the perimeter, every single living thing had been placed where someone had planned it to be and placed it just so,’ writes Melanie Light, describing her first experience flying over California’s Central […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
A parent lost and found: A review of Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a Life
Descanso for My Father: Fragments of a LifeBy Harrison Candelaria Fletcher147 pages, softcover: $14.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2012. When Colorado writer Harrison Candelaria Fletcher was almost 2 years old, his father, a pharmacist, died, leaving behind a wife and five children. His mother, who was 29 years younger than her husband, grew up in a […]
Posted inArticles
Rantcast: Bringing back the mammoths
Rants from the Hill are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in rural Nevada. They are posted at the beginning of each month at www.hcn.org. You can subscribe to the podcast for free in iTunes, or through Feedburner if you use other podcast readers. Each month’s rant is also available in written form. Musical credits for Rantcast: Bumper sticker sloganeering, licensed under […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
For Western politicians, roots matter
It’s election season, and our rural Colorado valley bears the signs of it — many signs, actually, plastered on hills, planted in farmer’s fields, or stuck in front yards like seasonal lawn ornaments. Some have generic messages like “Vote Republican.” Others are more specific, like the signs supporting longtime rancher Mark Roeber, a Republican running […]
Posted inGoat
That sweet autumn air
As darkness comes earlier to western Colorado, summer’s stillness gives way to a restless fall. The skunks start chemical wars, mountain lions assassinate kids (of the caprine variety) and bears burglarize fruit trees in our own backyards. These are signs of a changing season, one where my colleagues are all victims or gleeful voyeurs of […]
Posted inRange
Hope on eight legs
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Sometimes when I grow weary of news of natural disasters, wars and political squabbling, I flirt with the idea of creating a Great News Network (GNN) which only reports positive events. Effervescent anchorpeople with gleaming smiles would talk of ceasefires, people and pets rescued from peril, Rover landings, that […]
Posted inWotr
A once-proud conservation group has lost its way
Recently, the family of Olaus J. Murie demanded that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation cancel the organization’s Olaus J. Murie Award. The surprising reason? The foundation’s “all-out war against wolves is anathema to the entire Murie family.” I sympathize with the family’s position for several reasons. In 1999, while working for the Elk Foundation, I […]