Whenever I have few days to spare, I like to toss a sleeping bag and a fly rod and a few books into the back seat of my car and drive east, toward the mountains. It takes some time to shake free of the gravity of Seattle’s traffic, but once the strip malls start to […]
Methow Homecoming
Posted inArticles
Audio: A BLM insider speaks
Rodger Schmitt talks about why he resigned his position as national recreation director.
Posted inGoat
Fewer regs and no oversight
The United States continues its schizophrenic policy toward immigrant labor with President George W. Bush’s eleventh-hour changes to the H-2A program, which allows immigrant farmworkers into the country for up to ten months at a time. The changes will make it less expensive and complicated for agricultural employers, relaxing wage, housing and recruitment requirements. Bruce […]
Posted inWotr
Lessons from the mighty Maya
One theory about the collapse of the Maya civilization in Mexico some 1100 years ago is based on evidence that they had perfected a bureaucracy of corn. Exhaustive rules governed how corn was grown, distributed and consumed. A rigid hierarchy defined every individual’s social position and allotment of corn, and this cultural arrangement lasted 650 […]
Posted inGoat
Staying connected
Heating with wood provides a paradox. The process provides a warm indoor fire, isolating you from the cold outdoors. And yet it makes you more connected to the outdoors. Let it be noted that I use wood for supplemental heat, more or less. Our century-old house has a gas furnace, and while I’m glad it’s […]
Posted inGoat
Enviros shun autoworkers
A scene I’d like to see: The CEOs of the Sierra Club and other Big Green groups standing up in Congress and calling for financial help for the autoworkers in GM, Ford and Chrysler. Haven’t seen it, though. And that’s a problem in itself. The silence from environmentalists is one reason why they often struggle […]
Posted inGoat
Oh mining boom, we hardly knew ya…
HCN has been writing a lot lately about how the new mining boom is already going bust. Today, it got worse: global mining giant Rio Tinto announced it is laying off 14,000 employees, sending a clear message that the mining surge that was booming just a year ago has gone belly up. It’s the biggest […]
Posted inWotr
Here comes change
Recently I had the opportunity to watch a short but very moving video about an elderly Dine woman named Pauline Whitesinger from Big Mountain on the Navajo Nation. In it, she speaks about who she is, where she lives and what informs her life. Her nephew, Danny Blackgoat, translates her words, listening and speaking quietly. […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Don’t call it journalism
The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne featured the headline “Which is scarier?” on its front page a few days before the presidential election, followed by a subhead that echoed some of the nastier campaign literature making the rounds of the region: It asked readers to choose between “a black president or a bleak economy.”
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Going underground
For the past few years, it looked like the West would see a resurgence in hardrock mining, thanks in large part to China’s booming economy. In late summer, copper prices were around $4 per pound; molybdenum hovered over $30 per pound. Towns like Leadville, Colo., which was devastated when the Climax molybdenum mine shut down […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Drink for a good cause
As Capital Press put it: “Winemaker Budge Brown is on a mission — to find a cure for breast cancer — and he’s doing it one bottle at a time.” After his wife, Arlene, died of breast cancer three years ago, Brown, who grows grapes in California’s Pope Valley, decided to buy a wine label […]
Posted inWotr
Stream access wins decisively in Montana
The long slog is over. The Montana Supreme Court has finally settled a dispute over who controls access to a side channel of the Bitterroot River known as the Mitchell Slough. The verdict: The public does; Mitchell Slough is a natural waterway, and that means access is guaranteed for the people of Montana. You may […]
Posted inArticles
Interview: Tito Naranjo on the Pueblo world view
A Native American explores the underlying tension with archaeology
Posted inGoat
California water conflicts heat up
In a letter published in the November 24th edition, Jessica Hall urged HCN to “take a deeper look at water issues in California.” Around the same time there were several significant developments in the world of California water. And while GOAT is not the proper forum for a “deep” analysis, we can make readers aware […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time for a ceasefire on guns
Gun owners represent at least 4 million of the nation’s most dedicated voters, and in election after election, they affect the outcome. Sometimes they elect politicians who are corrupt or unabashed lackeys of corporate interests — people whose only appeal to gun owners is that they promise to leave the Second Amendment alone. Now, however, […]
Posted inGoat
On predators, ranchers and public land grazing
Jim Eischeid’s letter to HCN in the November 24th edition pointed out the irony that “the large majority of those ranchers get sweet subsidized deals on the use of the public lands for grazing, and yet they vilify the efforts to restore the wolf on those very same lands.” Eischeid then goes to the heart […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Nonprofitable times
Conservation groups hunker down for the economic crisis.
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
For the birds
Name Scott RashidAge 45Day Job Chef at Eagle Rock High School in Estes Park, Colo. Time spent doing bird stuff “How many hours are in a week?” First date with his wife Going up to Rocky Mountain National Park’s tundra to look for ptarmigans.Other hobbies Aikido ESTES PARK, COLORADO Scott Rashid stands in front of […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Birds of a feather
Home Ocala, Fla. (Dave); Bozeman, Mont., and Patagonia, Ariz. (Tam)Subscribers since 2002 At a remote watering hole in northeastern Montana called Harry’s Nite Club, HCN readers Dave Schweppe and Tam Scott and HCN intern Andrea Appleton crossed paths one moonlit October evening. Andrea was on assignment, and Dave and Tam were on their annual visit […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2008: Out in the cold
Congratulations, Theo
HCN‘s most famous hometown scientist, Dr. Theo Colborn, just received a prestigious international prize, the 2008 Goteborg Award for Sustainable Development. Theo is the founder and president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, which studies how industrial toxins affect the health of humans and the environment (www.endocrinedisruption.com). The prize, awarded by the city of Goteborg, Sweden, […]