NAME Les Bighorn AGE 47 HOMETOWN Poplar, Montana TRAINING Attended the Montana Law Enforcement Academy in Helena, Montana, and is now working toward a degree in history. HE SAYS “An elder once told me that when an animal comes to you instead of running or flying away as you approach it, they are telling you […]
Keeper of the wildlife
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Two weeks in the West
Imagine you’re taking in the view from a national park overlook: The red cliffs, blue shadows, and cottonwood bottoms of Zion; the jagged upsweep of the Tetons from Jackson Hole; the weird snaking remains of ancient trees at Petrified Forest. True, there are also oodles of lollygagging tourons, a remuda of RVs, and some faux-woodsy […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Dear friends
A CRASH IN WESTERN COLORADO What happens when an energy boom collides with an amenity boom? Join High Country News and a panel of experts on Thursday, May 15, at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo., for a rousing discussion exploring whether a gas-field town and a recreation and retirement community can coexist. Hear […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Leave it alone
The circle of stones sits in the Utah desert, on a bench above the murky waters of the river. Nearby, more stones are strewn about in an orderly fashion. And everywhere, pieces of gray, red and corrugated pottery lie scattered. Hundreds of years ago, this was a sacred Puebloan site. The circle, about 50 feet […]
Posted inArticles
Sovereign immunity on trial
Tribal governments may no longer be exempt from being sued by tribal members. Since the early 1800s, the U.S. government has acknowledged that Indian nations have full legal rights to manage their own affairs. This doctrine of tribal “sovereign immunity” has prevented legal attacks on tribal governments and shielded them from lawsuits brought by states, […]
Posted inWotr
These are the West’s good old days
When I was younger, I was sure I’d been born into the wrong century. Everything I read about America in the 1800s made me wish I’d lived along that expanding Western frontier where people lived adventurous lives. My life seemed stale and predictable in comparison, with all the excitement sapped out of the West, buried […]
Posted inWotr
Tribes make a controversial deal on salmon
After three Columbia River tribes decided to stop pushing for the breaching of four federal dams on the Snake River, many critics spoke the ugly word “sellout.” The tribes will receive $900 million in new salmon projects in exchange for halting their court battle for the next decade. However, the Warm Springs, Yakama and Umatilla […]
Posted inWotr
How to adopt a garden
The pioneer archetype looms large in the West. Strong and largely fictional, this heroic frontiersman delivered a calf at midnight in the blowing snow, mended fence all day and still had time to ride home into the sunset. Yet while one pioneer tended the herd, you can bet another was tending the garden, making applesauce, […]
Posted inArticles
Can wildlife weather the gas boom?
In northwestern Colorado’s Piceance Basin, the sage and juniper landscape is home to flocks of the dwindling greater sage grouse and one of the country’s largest migratory mule deer herds. It also happens to hold one of the nation’s largest natural gas reserves. Now, Colorado Division of Wildlife researchers are beginning a $1.3 million-per-year study […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 4: Water
If you want a glimpse of the unpredictable nature of water in the arid West, pick up a Utah newspaper from late fall or winter of 1983. Almost every story was about flooding. Floods that menaced Interstate 80 and the Southern Pacific Railroad with the waters of the Great Salt Lake. Floods that threatened to […]
Posted inArticles
Jaguar’s road to recovery unmapped
Some Native American cultures attribute divine power and magical stealth to the American jaguar — traits that could come in handy now that the endangered cat won’t be getting a federal recovery plan. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in mid-January that creating a recovery plan for borderland jaguars would “not be sensible.” Under […]
Posted inArticles
Up in FLAME
Last year, over 6 million acres of wildlands burned in Western states. Since 2000, wildfires have burned larger and hotter than ever, thanks to drought and a century of fire suppression. And they’ve caused millions of dollars in damage as more people build homes in or near wildlands. That’s left officials trying to figure out […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Plowing under the fields of shame
Under a brain-scorching heat, a group of farmworkers harvests melons from a vast field near Huron, Calif. There is only one woman among the dozen or so workers; she leans into the task, her arms outstretched, her body itself a tool. The bandana around her face and her baggy long-sleeved T-shirt offer a thin protection […]
Posted inWotr
Can I lose 20 pounds before my 50th high school reunion?
My 50th high school reunion is this summer. I’d love to go. But vanity and I long ago parted company and while I probably don’t look any worse than most women my age, I no longer have to whip out my ID to get the senior discount. I tell myself that it is a long […]
Posted inWotr
The secret of Los Angeles’ great-tasting water
Los Angeles has done it again — topping the list for the World’s tastiest tap water. “Good water rises to the top,” said producer Jill Klein Rone of the 18th annual “academy awards” of water held in Berkeley Springs, West Va. “Our tasting process is vindicated when the same waters are rated by a completely […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Lines in the sand
Desert cultures are a breed apart. The environments of each shape the particular ways in which its inhabitants – human and otherwise – survive and express themselves. But beyond each desert’s distinctive topography, climate and culture, “a living river of common heritage runs through them all.” So says Gary Nabhan, Sonoran Desert ecologist and author […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
A life of words and wilderness
Deeply felt, often metaphysical and sometimes maddening, Rick Bass’ memoir describes his long journey West, from the “petrochemical horrors” of Houston to the Yaak Valley in the far northwestern corner of Montana. But his cross-country migration is merely a starting point for the musings in Why I Came West. The book serves as a study […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Lupophobia blues
I thought that Alaska was crazy over wolves, and yes, they still are, but in Catron County, where I now spend my winters, things are crazier yet (HCN, 2/04/08). I’m not sure how the threatened child issue became so prominent in Catron County. Of course, wolves could kill a child, or an adult, for that […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Grand targhee stretches out
As a Teton County commissioner, I thought HCN’s readers would appreciate some additional information about the expansion of the Grand Targhee Resort in Teton County, Wyo., described in a recent “Two Weeks in the West” item (HCN, 3/03/08). The decision balanced the legitimate need for a historic resort to expand with the protection of natural […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Democracy in water decisions
Matt Jenkins’ article on Navajo water claims seemed to exhibit a subtle bias against the grassroots Dine folks on the outside of the tribal bureaucracy (HCN, 3/17/08). And maybe the activists are a little unfair to the white lawyer – after all, there are also Indian lawyers, elected officials, water consultants and bureaucrats who are […]