If you think the word “slut” insults women, how about the use of the word “virgin” to describe a forest that’s never been logged? It’s a commonly used term. Dictionary.com, for instance, defines “virgin forest” this way: “a forest in its natural state, before it has been explored or exploited by man.” Still, I was […]
Face it: All forests are “sluts”
Posted inWotr
Dead man working
There are plenty of ways for roughnecks to kill themselves. When I worked as a roofer in Deer Lodge, Mont., the guys on the crew would tell the same joke that’s been amended to every one of my blue-collar jobs: “If you fall off the roof, you’re fired before you hit the ground.” The joke […]
Posted inGoat
An unworthy opponent
For about a month, I’ve had my eye on the Arizona legislature’s uncanny will to pass fanatically conservative laws. This week seemed to reinforce that will, illustrated by these headlines: “Arizona bill would let mine firms shroud cases of pollution” and “Arizona okays secrecy for environmental reports.” While the headlines grab readers, they’re hyperbolic, and […]
Posted inWotr
Solar power works best when it stays small and local
In the spring of 2010, I was minding my own business, directing a small nonprofit whose focus for 15 years has been to fight any and all attempts to privatize public land. From bad land swaps that benefit billionaires and cheat the public to congressional selloff schemes, we thought we’d seen it all. Then along […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
A farewell to Montana’s grand madam
MONTANARuby Garrett, the racy grande dame of Butte, Mont., died March 17 at age 94. For many years, Garrett was the proprietor of the Dumas, the town’s last brothel, until it closed in 1982, reports the Montana Standard. Garrett had a couple of brushes with the law along the way, serving six months in jail […]
Posted inGoat
The unbearable lightness of winter
Maybe it’s because my meteorologist mom used to load our family into our old Dodge van to venture forth onto the flats east of Boulder, Colo., every time there was a severe nighttime thunderstorm to park beneath and ogle (a van, she and my dad reassured my brother and I, makes a pretty good Faraday […]
Posted inArticles
The itch that riles Frontera author Denise Chavez
Year after year, artists and authors, wrestlers and dancers, mariachis and chefs and people of all ethnicities have gathered in the tiny town of Mesilla, N.M., for the Border Book Festival, an unusual celebration of Frontera art and literature. The festival, which attracts internationally known writers and publishers to this impoverished region, features Latino-centric craft […]
Posted inRange
Lighten up, take a load off
All this serious, recent talk (also see this) about Western water shortages and new pipelines gets me thinking again about a not-so-serious but related subject: poop. Granted, there are many very serious aspects of poop such as its disease-carrying properties. You may be aware that some of these benefits are old news to Joseph Jenkins, […]
Posted inRange
A toxic cocktail runs through it
The Yakama Nation calls for additional remediation of the Willamette River.
Posted inGoat
Insects v. orange juice lovers
In the battle of man (and his morning glass of Tropicana) versus a 3-millimeter long, mottled-brown insect, the insect has mostly been winning. Asian citrus psyllid, and the disease it transmits, the uncurable-and-deadly huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening disease, has been cutting through citrus orchards in the major U.S. orange-producing states since 2005, when […]
Posted inArticles
Could doing chores save the world?
A version of this essay originally ran in Sage Magazine, a publication run by students at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. On the day I arrive at Lama, N.M., it takes me a few minutes to find the people. When I find them, they are all holding hands around a large octagonal […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: climate action and water wars
Not all environmentalists have recognized their starvation for fiction depicting climate doom, but when they do, Paolo Bacigalupi has a book for them, “The Drowned Cities.” Bacigalupi told his friend and former High Country News editor in chief Greg Hanscom, in a recent Q&A, about his befuddlement regarding the lack of “ecocollapse” parables in popular […]
Posted inMarch 19, 2012: Water Warrior
Following the Old Spanish Trail across the Southwest
In his search for the routes used by the West’s early travelers, archaeologist Jack Pfertsh has become a detective of detritus. Today he’s on the hunt for old tin cans and fragments of purple and green glass. The mid-November sun is sinking as we walk the windswept land just north of Delta, Colo. Brown grasses […]
Posted inGoat
Biofuel crops invade gas tanks, habitat
From bindweed to tamarisk, invasive weeds are a scourge of many Western communities; certainly not something anyone wants more of. Yet a clause in newly proposed bill to promote biofuels energy may open up a loophole that would send federal dollars to pay farmers for planting and growing certain highly invasive plants as bioenergy feedstocks. […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Falcon fear factor
OREGONThree peregrine falcons named Judah, Carbon and Zinc are the go-to birds for a Portland garbage station when it wants to discourage pesky seagulls that scatter food scraps and foul nearby roofs and cars with their droppings. The raptors don’t have to attack the gulls to haze them away, reports The Oregonian; all they need […]
Posted inRange
Calling all citizen scientists
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When I was a kid, my three sisters and I were compelled to go on what we called “forced marches” all over the country, from Death Valley (which we dubbed near-to-Death Valley) to Cape Cod National Seashore, where the August sand was so hot that our Jellies—you remember, […]
Posted inRange
Let’s Put a Bounty on Stupid
What is more stupid than bailing the ocean? Paying someone to bail the ocean. Yet it seems the Utah Legislature thinks that’s a good idea. Worse yet, Utah lawmakers are co-opting the state’s sportsmen to pay for this folly. If you are a sportsman anywhere between Alaska and Arizona, watch your wallet. This trend ain’t […]
Posted inGoat
All noisy on the Western front
First, a bit of shameless self promotion: High Country News recently launched two brand new monthly podcasts! Rants from the Hill, the audio version of Michael Branch’s essays on life in Nevada’s high desert, which have appeared on our Range blog for the past year or so, will be available at the beginning of each month. […]
Posted inArticles
Margaret Hiza Redsteer uses Navajo memories to track climate change
Margaret Hiza Redsteer has long known the Navajo Nation. Of Crow descent, she grew up near the Montana-Wyoming border, and in the 1970s moved to an area of Arizona then shared by the Navajo and Hopi tribes. She married a Navajo man and they had three children. While living on the reservation, she often heard […]
Posted inRange
Lessons From the Musselshell: small steps toward recovery
Editor’s note: This is the fifth blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. While the Musselshell River’s rampaging waters were still receding and ranchers were just beginning to assess the extent of the damage thus revealed, Musselshell Watershed Coalition (MWC) members met to address immediate needs […]