Hear the sounds Jeff Rice collects around the West and learn about why he does it. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. Available via our RSS feed, and for download now through iTunes.
Jeff Rice on documenting the West in sound
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Educate on!
I graduated from Greenville High School in 1997, and I wish the natural resources program had been offered back then (HCN, 2/7/11). We need more of this type of education in our schools — and we need it soon. The more we get kids involved in caring for and studying natural resources, the brighter the […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
A rose by any other name …
I’m curious as to why HCN‘s editors printed Craig Childs’ ghostwalking essay (HCN, 2/21/2011). By his own admission, Mr. Childs’ escapade took place in an “off-limits” area, where access was permitted “as long as nobody sees you.” Deliberately entering it was trespassing, pure and simple. Romanticizing Mr. Childs’ blatant disregard for the rights of others […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Predator control’s unsustainable roots
Tracy Ross’ story was a good first look at the politics of predator control (HCN, 2/21/2011). One thing this article missed, however, is the fact that politics also drives the overexploitation of moose and caribou by the hunting industry. Game managers are under intense pressure to allow unsustainable harvests. Add to the mix a for-profit […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
More hunters, more dollars
As an avid hunter and wildlife enthusiast, I read your recent feature on Alaska’s predator control program with keen interest (HCN, 2/21/2011). Surprisingly, neither writer seems to have grasped the dirty little secret that underlies modern day wildlife management: It’s not about wildlife, it’s about hunter opportunity. Put simply, anything that negatively impacts huntable populations […]
Posted inBlog
U.N. human rights expert visits California tribe
Arron Sisk took the smoldering sunflower root and undulated it from Catarina de Albuquerque’s feet to the top of her head, its pungent smoke curling above her like a spectral crown. He then held it beneath her nose, and told her the root would clear her mind from bad thoughts, allow her to see and […]
Posted inArticles
Defriending Joe Hill: Stegner’s lesson for the Oscars
Like most people who write about the West, I think about Wallace Stegner a lot. He’s like a brilliant, beloved, occasionally exasperating uncle. He said many things first and best, and, though he could get a bit stuffy at times, we youngsters have to admit that — even now, almost two decades after his death […]
Posted inGoat
First Signs of Spring
We asked our HCN Facebook community what signs of spring they were seeing (or looking for) in their corner of the West. Several of you mentioned birds, including western meadowlarks — which have already started singing in earnest here in Western Colorado — sandhill cranes and and mountain bluebirds. Beth Pratt, who took the photo […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Jeff Rice collects nature’s noises
Some people collect butterflies. Others amass dolls or antique cars. Armed with a microphone and recorder, Jeff Rice chases the West’s natural sounds — from the hooting of owls to the buzzing of Great Basin rattlesnakes. A relative newcomer to nature field recording, Rice worked in audio production for about 15 years. As a radio […]
Posted inRange
Forests will recover from pine beetle
If you took a survey to determine the most unpopular insect in the Rocky Mountains, the answer might well be not the disease-carrying wood tick, but the mountain pine beetle. Actually, it wouldn’t even be close, because the tick is an eight-legged arachnid, like a spider, rather than a six-legged insect. And it’s the pine […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Arizona’s Fossil Creek gets restored — and loved to death
Deep in Arizona’s Mazatzal Mountains, there’s a 16-mile-long undulating channel of emerald-green travertine. Clear 75-degree water bubbles from the ground and flows down it at a steady 45 cubic feet per second. It’s home to a thriving native fish population, rare and endangered aquatic and terrestrial creatures, and towering canopies of cottonwood, ash and sycamore […]
Posted inGoat
Exploring rural communities, food and environment
With this week’s release of its Atlas of Small Town and Rural America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given citizens a nifty tool to explore data on the lesser-populated parts of the country. The interactive atlas provides a nice mix of statistics, combining numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, […]
Posted inGoat
Even Tea Partiers are Conservationists
New Mexico’s new governor, Republican Susana Martinez, may have gotten right down to business last month by putting a hold on a rule that would require large polluters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But if new data on Western public opinion is accurate, then it wasn’t the state’s voters who gave her that mandate. According […]
Posted inRange
Tim DeChristopher, fossil fuels, and civil disobedience
For the past few weeks, I have been learning how to sing. I’ve gathered with members of the Unitarian Church, social activists, and climate activists to learn the some of the old protest songs that buoyed up the abolition movement, the civil rights movement, and the peace movement. I won’t lie. It’s a little awkward […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
On the lam
WYOMING There’s nothing like a bunch of bad yaks to get the Cowboy State’s Legislature riled up. Woolly wanderers, these particular yaks have never been content to graze the grass growing solely on the “Yak Daddy Ranch” owned by John and Laura DeMetteis. The big guys routinely seek out other pastures and crash through fences […]
Posted inBlog
The price of “green” home improvement
Many Arizonans like to talk big about resenting federal intrusion and giveaways, but one recent giveaway appears to have been quite popular. While definitive statistics on installations in the Phoenix area are unavailable, an observer will certainly notice a good number of homes — especially in aging mid-century neighborhoods like mine — sporting efficient new […]
Posted inGoat
Crow Tribe to vote on water compact
Federal settlement could fund reservation infrastructure improvements.
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
How my thoughts on wolves have changed
ANCHORAGE, ALASKA The wolves that periodically venture into the valley behind my home are blood-thirsty killers. That’s what I admire about them. They evolved to near perfection in their ecological niche, and they are lucky. They are not forced to contemplate whether their lifestyle serves nature well. People, well: People are different. Our greatest evolutionary […]
Posted inRange
Rocks on the road
The main highway into my town has just reopened after it was closed by a rockslide for most of last week, but I didn’t notice much disruption. Salida, Colo., was about as busy as it ever is during February. The rocks slid down a cliff at about 5 p.m. on Feb. 14, about a mile […]
Posted inGoat
Missing the subdivisions for the trees
At first it’s hard to tell what we’re looking at. The tiny plane bumps and bounces through turbulence that warns of an incoming winter storm, repeatedly bucking my too-tall self (despite tight seatbelt) into the low ceiling and knocking the lens of my camera against the window. Beyond the smeared glass, rolling mountains spread eastward […]