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 […]
Remediating a Superfund sacrifice zone on Montana’s Clark Fork river
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 […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time to kill my own food
I’m taking a hunter education class in Lander, Wyo., and at the first get-together, I share a table with Ridge, 9, and Dante, 10, cousins who’ve already hunted lots of deer and antelope with their dads and grandpa. They can’t get hunting licenses of their own until they turn 12, but they’re eager to learn […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Don’t tell her she can’t: a profile of author Mary Clearman Blew
Author and professor Mary Clearman Blew grew up on cattle ranches outside Lewistown, Mont., in the ’40s and ’50s, the great grand-daughter of homesteaders. She’s written about her family’s legacy and the changing West in nonfiction (All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family), short stories (Runaway), and a novel, Jackalope Dreams, about ranchers […]
Posted inRange
Eating ethically: a tree-hugging former vegetarian learns to hunt
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing. I don’t like guns. I’m almost universally opposed to killing things. So why then, did I spend a recent weekend learning how to handle a shotgun and rifle? What possessed me to take the hunter safety exam necessary for obtaining a hunting license? It began with a dead elk. […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Redwoods or red wine?
CALIFORNIA It’s almost too audacious to be true: Two wineries in Northern California’s Sonoma County want to clear 2,000 acres of redwoods to make room for new grape farms, reports the Los Angeles Times. Premier Pacific Vineyards, which owns the 20,000-acre ironically named “Preservation Ranch,” and Artesa Vineyards want to cash in on the boom […]
Posted inWotr
Nature fierce and not so pretty
I’ve never cared much for nature writing as a genre because usually there’s too much wafting, glimmering and shimmering. Things seem to happen outdoors that seldom happen in real life. Animals, for instance, often come off seeming more noble, contemplative and spiritual than humans. I think nature can be just as drunk, self-indulgent and spiteful […]
Posted inGoat
A small victory for Libby
Rarely has good news emerged from Libby, Mont., in recent decades. Hundreds of residents of the small town have died and thousands more have been sickened from exposure to asbestos fibers, which spread from a local vermiculite mine throughout the community, ending up lodged in people’s lungs. Kids used to play in mine waste, and […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
Farmland conservation program may be plowed under
Third-generation rancher Tony Malmberg remembers driving down a road in western Nebraska with his grandfather 38 years ago and watching clouds of blowing dirt darken the sky above their heads. “A bunch of Kansas farmers had come in and bought a bunch of this sandhill country and were plowing it up,” says Malmberg. His grandfather […]
Posted inRange
Oil, gas, and the roadless rule: too complex for newspapers?
Editor’s note: Sharon Friedman blogs on forest policy at “A New Century of Forest Planning” and will be posting occasionally on the Range blog. As you all know, I think it’s really important that the public gets a chance to understand Forest Service (publicland, natural resource) issues so they can make informed choices. The problem […]
Posted inWotr
Beware of wolves cloaked in “access”
America’s national forests belong to everyone, and all Americans deserve and rightfully demand access to this national birthright. Such access is like oxygen for hunters and anglers, but beware: Industry barracudas and their pals in Congress are trying to hoodwink sportsmen into supporting bad legislation by promising more lenient access. Today’s case in point is […]
Posted inGoat
Calories and economics on public lands
Back in the glitzy ’80s, uber-designer Diane von Furstenberg gained notoriety for telling women “you can never be too rich or too thin.” Turns out she was wrong on both counts. But those central obsessions of Americans, weight and wealth, have become a lens through which to view the benefits of a surprising array of […]
Posted inGoat
Bill Koch, coal, and political cash
The cynic in me hardly batted an eye when I read recently that Republican House Speaker John Boehner is raking in coal-stained cash. Nor did I spill my coffee when I noticed that one of Boehner’s big new donors is a Koch brother. My interest was piqued, however, when I saw that it wasn’t David […]
Posted inGoat
The costs of climate change
From California beachside communities to remote villages in subarctic Alaska, the impacts of climate change are becoming ever more tangible, as shown by two government studies released this week. “Sea-level rise is here and we need to start planning for it,” said Philip King, associate professor of economics at San Francisco State University, in the […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Where’s the good news?
While I was interested in the article, “Looking for Balance in Navajoland,” and am well aware that controversy and upset sell better than routine good performance, I wonder if you could manage at least a couple of stories on some of the success stories in Indian Country (HCN, 8/22/11). There must be many, but one […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
The turn of the wheel: the many lives of writer H. Lee Barnes
“A lot of the themes that I work with are within the context of the lives I have lived,” says Nevada author H. Lee Barnes. “My characters are grassroots people who struggle to make it to the next day.” An Army brat who grew up “all over the Southwest,” Barnes was a Green Beret in […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
‘The most sacred form of welfare’
Nevada has two large bodies of natural water within its borders: Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake (HCN, 8/8/11). The state of Nevada has made the choice to sacrifice Walker Lake by over-allocating the upstream water rights to a few upstream communities. As your article stated, irrigation brought glorious benefits, from onions to potatoes, alfalfa and […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Tales of sagebrush and murder: A review of Assumption
AssumptionPercival Everett272 pages, softcover: $15.Graywolf Press, October. There aren’t nearly enough books set in New Mexico. With its cinematic lighting and uniquely off-kilter characters, the state should grow great novels as plentifully as chiles. Strangely, though, it hasn’t. California author Percival Everett sets out to change that with Assumption, a trilogy of mysteries starring Ogden […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Survival and opportunism in Butte: A review of The Richest Hill on Earth
The Richest Hill on EarthRichard S. Wheeler320 pages, hardcover: $29.99.Forge, December. In the run-up to an election year, what can the past reveal about public figures and the role they play in shaping business policies? Montana author Richard S. Wheeler’s historical novel The Richest Hill on Earth dramatizes the rivalry between the 19th century “Copper […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Stories like a bale unrolling: a review of Conjugations of the Verb To Be
Conjugations of the Verb To BeGlen Chamberlain193 pages, softcover: $11.95.Delphinium Press, September. The fictional ranching town of Buckle in eastern Montana is the setting for Bozeman writer Glen Chamberlain’s short-story collection Conjugations of the Verb To Be. The stories, though independent, are skillfully intertwined; the lives of the characters overlap and intermingle in the many […]