With oil prices spiking past $120 a barrel, earthquakes and cyclones killing tens of thousands in Asia, and food prices spurring riots abroad and wrestling matches in the grocery line at home, the morning news is beginning to sound more than a little bit apocalyptic. In the West, you might expect the survivalists to cry […]
Two weeks in the West
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Dear friends
FELLOW NEWSMEN COME TO CALL Kevin Haley, the “founder, publisher, editor, janitor and copyboy” of the San Juan Horseshoe, dropped by to say hi. The Ouray, Colo.-based parody newspaper bills itself as “Refried News for a Half-Baked World.” From Salida, Colo., came Mike Rosso, webmaster for four newspapers owned by Arkansas Valley Publishing. He said […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Uranium: It’s worse than you think
When people think of Durango, Colo., they usually think of the scenery, or the tourist attractions, or the disproportionate number of healthy, spandex-clad bicyclists, runners and raft guides. Rarely do they think of cancer. Perhaps they should. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Durango. It was a nice place to grow […]
Posted inWotr
When you’re rich, you can dream
The last great boom that lit up Wyoming’s economy happened 25 years ago. The predictable bust followed, and it was the mid-1980s when oil prices crashed, nationwide demand for energy plummeted, interest rates soared and, overall, many get-rich dreams that had been hatched during the heady days turned to nightmares. Now, we are in the […]
Posted inWotr
Democrats could play the donkey card in Denver
It’s been said that burros, beans and brawn won the West. Now, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are weighing whether iconic images of the Old West should be used to market the event in Denver this summer. The debate is not without significance. Democrats, who have been unable to gain a foothold in Southern […]
Posted inArticles
Putting out the welcome mats
Southwestern Wyoming’s Upper Green River Valley is home to the most extensive wetlands and riparian areas in the state, and its vast sagebrush prairies have long been a stronghold for sage grouse, antelope and mule deer. The Upper Green is also the site of the huge Jonah natural gas field. The Jonah Field stretches over […]
Posted inWotr
All Westerners are stalwart (and other tall tales)
Western humor is all about adversity, braving the elements, surviving the landscape and stretching the truth. Call it polished prevarication. Not lies, exactly; more like embellishments. Stories that should be true, even if they’re not. Pioneers came West, and over time each group told its own jokes — cowboys, loggers, Lycra-clad bicyclists – and everyone […]
Posted inWotr
How not to save salmon
For centuries, killing predators was to fish and wildlife management what leeches were to medicine. By the mid-20th century, even the dullest minds in government had figured this out. But duller minds were yet to come. Enter the administration of George W. Bush. In 2008, it is hawking control of salmon-eating birds, fish and mammals […]
Posted inWotr
A beekeeper hopes for the best in spring
They all survived. My honeybee hives somehow managed to survive another winter. With all of the gloom and doom in the press about colony-collapse disorder, I had expected that at least one of my six hives would be pitifully empty or dead. Thankfully, I was wrong. Each of the hives has a different story, similar […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Small-town struggle in a big land
The Enders Hotel, winner of the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, chronicles a childhood and coming of age in Soda Springs, Idaho, amid the beauty of the high desert and the rampant alcoholism of a Western “company”town. After stints elsewhere in Idaho and in Washington, young Brandon Schrand, his mother, and stepfather settle in […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Words that mountains speak
In the 18th century, when the Romantics looked up at the mountains of Europe, instead of seeing what their predecessors saw – foreboding rocky obstacles to human advance – they saw sublime peaks. Rather than fear, they felt wonder and desire. In a swift shift of perception, they re-wrote European attitudes towards mountains, initiating the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
California protestin’
April Reese’s analysis of the leasing protest game told a story familiar in California as well as the Intermountain West (HCN, 3/31/08) Recently, Los Padres ForestWatch, in partnership with rural landowners, protested a lease sale of more than 20,000 acres adjacent to the Los Padres National Forest. Later, all but one of the parcels were […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
No country for old men
I’ve lived in rural eastern Oregon for 37 years, and in that time have known several suicides (HCN, 3/31/08). Some are variations on the scripts that Ring discusses. But there is another type of suicide that is not unusual in the rural independent West – the elderly or terminal individual who clings to control over […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
A quietus made … Is no sin
I think it is worth remembering that for every “crazy” person who kills himself, there are many more suicide victims who show no evidence of “craziness”at all. I’ve lost three dear friends to gunshot suicide. None of us saw the signs, and indeed, they were hard to detect. But maybe, as the world itself becomes […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Heard Around the West
WASHINGTON John Slemp, a 52-year-old UPS driver from Portland, recently snowmobiled to the top of Mount St. Helens with his son, Jared, who is just back from serving a year in Iraq, reports the Seattle Times. In the cold, crisp air, the men decided to do something risky: They crawled onto a cornice overlooking the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Coffeepots and climate
As I rode my bike north out of Fort Collins, Colo., the houses thinned out, replaced by cows and horses. In one field between me and the foothills, several pronghorn antelope ran from me in a short leaping spurt, turned and looked back, then resumed their grazing. A string of steel power line structures, which […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The West’s wacky weather
In December of last year, High Country News ran a news report about the severe drought then plaguing the West. Ski slopes were brown, wildfires were still burning in California and New Mexico, and weather forecasters were calling for an ultra-dry Western winter. By the time the issue hit the streets, those streets and everything […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The mysticism of mud
Mud season just ended on the sage-covered mesa north of Taos that I call home. During the last few months, you could tell who lives on dirt roads by the perpetual stripe of mud on their lower pant legs. That’s normal. But I have never seen as much mud as I saw this spring. On […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Climate Revolutionary
Creating a legal framework for saving our planet
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
The gospel according to Ron Gillett
Fiery advocate against wolves connects with a small farm town