A California BestiaryRebecca Solnit and Mona Caron64 pages, hardcover: $12.95.Heyday Books, 2010. In the tradition of illuminated medieval manuscripts, A California Bestiary presents 12 literary and visual portraits of fauna native to that state, from the extinct (California grizzly), to the emblematic (California condor), the ubiquitous (California ground squirrel), and the preciously obscure (mission blue […]
A California Bestiary: Beauty of the beasts
Posted inMay 10, 2010: The Secret Lives of River Guides
Goodbye, Rocky Mountain News; hello, Mrs. Li
How one journalist coped with a great Western paper’s demise
Posted inWotr
What it took to win one small victory
We won. The tiny town of Conway, Wash., will not have a cell tower looming over its one street. Thanks to hours of work and thousands of dollars, we won. But it shouldn’t have been that hard. The 150-foot tower was to have been located behind the post office, where it would have dwarfed even […]
Posted inGoat
That old-time separation
Today is the first Thursday in May, which makes it the National Day of Prayer, established by the U.S. Congress in 1952. A federal judge in Wisconsin has found it an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the federal government, but the decision is under appeal and so the events will go forward. It […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
True or false?
WYOMINGWhen it comes to the Cowboy State, comedian Jeff Foxworthy gets it, or so say some locals who’ve been e-mailing around some of his spot-on observations. He says that if “you’ve ever refused to buy something because it’s ‘too spendy’,” if “you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time,” if “your town has […]
Posted inGoat
Refinery blues
The Sinclair Wyoming Refinery’s clumsy environmental record continues to stumble: Last week, some 80 dead birds, most of them western grebes, were found in a wastewater pond laced with oil spilled from an undetermined source in the refinery. The accident is the latest in a spate of spills (see our story, “Sinclair flare up“) at […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Prisoner plantings
This week’s reader photo is another photo contest submission. It shows the hands of inmates propogating plants to be used in restoration projects in Washington State. Check out this photo and many others at our contest site, and enter your photos of Western people into the contest before the deadline – May 9.
Posted inMay 10, 2010: The Secret Lives of River Guides
Urban habitat
Building an inner-city base hasn’t been easy for the Audubon Society
Posted inGoat
A water hog, redeemed
“A big tamarisk can suck 73,000 gallons of river water a year. For $2.88 a day, plus water bounty, Lolo rips tamarisk all winter long.” So begins Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Tamarisk Hunter,” a short story set in a dystopic future when humans must fight tamarisk for every drop of water. The story might be made […]
Posted inMay 10, 2010: The Secret Lives of River Guides
Culture of the Canyon
A Grand Canyon river trip is a revelation
Posted inHeard Around the West
Talk about dedication
MONTANASometimes you have to look a little silly to get the job done. It’s a risk Mark Renner, an avid bowhunter, was willing to take when he designed a hat to fool pronghorn antelope. The wily animals were always quick to flee once they spotted Renner standing up to shoot, so he tried outfitting a […]
Posted inMay 10, 2010: The Secret Lives of River Guides
The Secret Lives of River Guides
Grand Canyon boatman culture converges at “spring training”
Posted inRange
Measuring progress in Native health
Consider this from a White House memo: “While there have been improvements in health status of Indians in the past 15 years, a loss of momentum can further slow the already sluggish rate of approach to parity. Increased momentum in health delivery and sanitation as insured by this bill speed the rate of closing the […]
Posted inBlog
Psssst…everyone… jobs in North Dakota.
It’s a common theme here in the West — during boom times, more workers flood into towns than can be housed. Workers loaded with cash they’ve made in the oil and gas fields or uranium mines can’t find an apartment to rent, while hotels are booked for months, even years in advance. Many end up […]
Posted inWotr
Walking through the din of a coastal maelstrom
The five of us walk slowly along the spongy Pacific Coast trail, showing flashes of color in the green and brown, mossy forest: My daughter’s polka-dot rain jacket, my son’s electric-blue backpack. We have gotten by the sections that require low tide to cross. The path climbs into the rainforest while storm squalls canter overhead. […]
Posted inGoat
Oh vaulted ancestors!
The Granite Mountain Record Vault is a veritable temple, a slightly more natural- and secure-looking version of the one in Salt Lake City, not far away. A spiritual glow even radiates from the arched entrance to its tunnels (at least in this promotional photo). But this vault holds way more folks than the spired House […]
Posted inRange
Meditational rant on the word “pristine”
This morning my local radio station aired an ad which referred to the natural environments of California’s North Coast. It was for an outdoor store; listeners were encouraged to enjoy our regions river, beaches and pristine mountain tops. This really gets my goat. I’ve been on most of those mountain tops over the past 35 […]
Posted inWotr
Removing four dams is worth some compromise
Most days, I move ahead with a strong conviction that supporting the settlement to remove four dams in Oregon and California and shift the balance of flows in the Klamath River basin is the right thing to do. The science supports it, and in the big picture, it makes sense, because in spite of our […]
Posted inRange
The 2012 Farm Bill dance begins in DC
Last week the Agricultural Committee of the US House of Representatives began work on the 2012 Farm Bill with a kick-off hearing. I happened to be in DC at the time and I stood in line with lobbyists for farm groups waiting to get a good seat in the wood paneled hearing room. I was […]