Last week, or maybe it was the week before, a familiar sound drifted over from the hay field abutting the property where I live. Pop! Pop! Pop! My boyfriend and I looked at each other: “Prairie dogs,” we said in unison. Another few bite the dust. Our neighbors don’t seem to like the rodents, and […]
A feel good ferret story (mostly)
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
A part of something old: writer Kim Stafford’s storied places
In southwest Portland lies a strip of untamed land, bounded by busy roads in a dense, urban landscape. It is not a park, simply a tract of woods that developers missed. It is also not pristine nature, but it is what writer and Portland native Kim Stafford calls a “scattered Eden.” Those woods are just […]
Posted inRange
Why rural communities deserve investment
By Chuck Hassebrook, the Daily Yonder We cannot build a strong nation on a foundation of crumbling communities. Even the sound elements are weakened by those not maintained. So it would be a mistake to write off rural communities and suspend federal investment in their future, as advocated by some in the September […]
Posted inWotr
Only one thing is certain: A grizzly got killed
As with most crime stories, the details of why Jeremy Hill killed a grizzly bear in northern Idaho were slow to emerge. The federal prosecutors who charged Hill with a misdemeanor in early August were stingy with information, beyond saying that he had killed the juvenile male on his property, thereby violating the Endangered Species […]
Posted inGoat
The middles of nowhere
Crossposted from the Last Word on Nothing As someone preoccupied with odd, mysterious places, I have a longstanding appreciation for an odd, mysterious organization called The Center for Land Use Interpretation. Equal parts arts organization, archive, and amateur detective agency, the Los Angeles-based CLUI (rhymes with gooey) has a particular interest in the forgotten spaces of the […]
Posted inRange
Feeling the wasteful weight of the electronics age
A university campus like the one where I work is a fine place to receive constant reminders of one’s age. For years, decades really, I paid no heed to older colleagues who complained that they had little in common with their undergraduate students. Now, however, I fully recognize that although I diligently work at keeping […]
Posted inGoat
Fish fight on the Elwha
On Sept. 15, an excavator tore the first chunks of concrete from the Glines Canyon dam on Washington state’s Elwha River. It was a historic moment, kicking off the largest dam removal in U.S. history. When the dams are gone, salmon will swim up the Elwha for the first time in nearly 100 years. Seventy miles […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Cody Cortez: A faux-file of the West’s most mysterious writer
As fiercely reclusive as he is enigmatic, Cody Cortez is probably the most compelling Western writer you’ve never heard of. He lives off the grid and loathes the trappings of the literary life, spurning bookstore readings and appearances on National Public Radio. Among devotees, though, the pages of his books-in-progress, especially his memoir-in-the-making, Cowboy Rinpoche, […]
Posted inGoat
Pearls of discontent
Last week, The National Park Service released a draft environmental impact statement that assesses the impacts the commercial shellfish company has on the estuary where it’s based–particularly its impacts on eelgrass, water quality, and wildlife–and evaluates the pros and cons of issuing a new permit that would allow the company to continue operating.
Posted inWotr
When it comes to importing water, nothing seems too extreme
The West’s history of developing water sources, occasionally stained with instances of outright theft, is probably best described as “complicated.” Our decisions on who should get what water — and how, and from which source they should get it — usually teetered to the side of whatever person in power had the least tolerance for […]
Posted inGoat
The business of banking
Early this August, 12 branches of a bank serving rural Washington state — the Colfax-based Bank of Whitman — shuttered their doors for good. The closure is just one more in a long series of bank failures stemming from the financial crisis. The vast majority of banks are community banks, making up 98 percent of […]
Posted inWotr
Wilderness and military use can coexist
A funny thing happened on the way to a small expansion of the nation’s prized system of wilderness. In Colorado, the state’s largest national forest wilderness proposal in nearly two decades is being ambushed by the U.S. military. At stake is the gorgeous Red Table Mountain area in central Colorado between the valleys of the […]
Posted inRange
A tale of two maulings
Two headlines recently caught my eye: in eastern Idaho, a hunter after elk with archery gear was mauled by a grizzly bear. His partner turned the attack around with pepper spray, although the bear still inflicted serious injuries. Details here. Earlier in September, another hunter was mauled in northwestern Montana, by a grizzly he and […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Seeds of atonement: an interview with writer Shann Ray
The short stories in Shann Ray’s first book, American Masculine, reflect his lifelong interest in forgiveness and redemption, as well as in basketball and the American West. Ray’s characters struggle to live up to their families’ expectations and look up to those who are “more ready to give and forgive.” Ray, who grew up in […]
Posted inGoat
The long and winding road…
If you’re familiar with the Klamath River Basin, which straddles the Oregon-California border, you’ve likely heard the story. Leafing back through the High Country News archives, we’ve certainly told it enough times. It goes something like this: It was, in a word, a meltdown. But the disaster also helped catalyze the “peace” that Jenkins wrote […]
Posted inRange
Drilling in state parks is more pavement on the road to hell
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House My first year in college I had kitchen cleanup duty with a friend who enthusiastically splashed bleach and ammonia into a bucket while she was mopping the floors. Almost immediately, the toxic vapor had our heads swimming and our eyes burning. As the entire dorm was being evacuated I […]
Posted inRange
A journey through the “Era of Contraction”
I drove across the Northwest this past weekend. A 1,700-mile trip from Idaho to Seattle, returning via rural roads in Washington, and freeways in Idaho and Montana. Along the route I looked at places and wondered, how will life change during the Era of Contraction? The most visible sign of a federal West (the one […]
Posted inGoat
Creatures of the Monsoon
This summer, southern Arizona – like much of the Southwest — experienced what weather mavens call a “meteorological singularity,” a weather event that happens every year around the same time. The phenomenon is the Arizona monsoon, a seasonal shifting of winds that moves moisture northward from the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico in July, August, and […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Remediating a Superfund sacrifice zone on Montana’s Clark Fork river
I spent last summer and fall floating down the country’s largest Superfund site in a canoe. I was living in a borrowed cabin near Georgetown Lake, about 20 miles from the headwaters of Montana’s Clark Fork River. I wanted a closer look at a disaster before it was undone. Speak the words “Montana river,” and […]
Posted inGoat
Friday News Roundup: Bison and borders
A final answer to where wild bison can roam won’t surface until Montana develops a statewide conservation strategy for the mighty rangeland beasts. In the meantime, bison need a temporary home, and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks is discussing where to put them. They say that may be Fort Belknap and Fort […]