Name Chris Myles Age 51 Vocation A chronic volunteer, he’s studying to become a paramedic and makes homemade classic guitars. Known for Attempting to distill homebrewed ethanol On what brought him to Silverton “The blue skies here are like nothing I’d ever seen before. You get clear days in the Midwest but there is always […]
Fill ‘er up with moonshine
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Man Camp
Energy companies turn to portable dormitories during housing crunch
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Under the radar
In the rural West, the homeless are rarely seen and often ignored
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Two weeks in the West
Big coal remains big and the weather gets wacky in the New Year. Is there a connection?
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Schooling, fish
Before I came to work at High Country News, I lived in San Francisco, a beautiful city of sometimes ugly contrasts, one involving education. In wealthy, cosmopolitan San Francisco, public schools are a horror. There are many reasons why S.F. schools have largely stunk for three decades, but one of them involves settlement of a […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
The great wilderness compromise
What would Zahnie do?” I asked myself that question as I hiked into the White Cloud Mountains of central Idaho. I’d come here to report on an ugly internecine fight among environmentalists over the fate of this would-be wilderness of rock and ice, high meadows, pine forests and alpine lakes. Both sides invoked the name […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Why operation of wildlife refuges shouldn’t be privatized
Through the years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t been known for a willingness to stand up to political pressure. So I was surprised in mid-December when the agency took back control of the National Bison Range in Montana. Until then, it had been operating the refuge jointly with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
History of a decline
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Salmon Justice.” Pre-European settlement: The Columbia/Snake River Basin produces between 10 million and 16 million salmon, making it the most bountiful salmon spawning ground in the world. 1933: President Franklin Roosevelt authorizes Bonneville Dam about 40 miles east of Portland, Ore., the first major […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Dear Friends
FOUR MONTHS OF INDENTURED SERVITUDE This winter, Erin Halcomb is trading in her chain saw for an HCN intern’s computer. Erin, a Colorado native, spent the past five winters in Oregon, thinning trees and teaching environmental education. During the summers, she worked as a fire lookout. Erin first came to Oregon in 2001, when she […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Salmon Justice
An interview with U.S. District Judge Jim Redden, who’s given uncooperative federal agencies clear warning: Submit a viable salmon restoration plan for the Snake/Columbia River Basin, or face the possible breaching of four major dams.
Posted inWotr
Only reform in Mexico can stop the exodus to America
Angelica, a dark-haired young woman, smiled and looked straight ahead. She was wearing a new dress and shoes and sat behind a table in the schoolhouse of a remote village in the mountains of Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. “Mi esposo se fue al norte,” she replied, when a health worker asked why her […]
Posted inWotr
Hypocrisy on the road
I?ll always remember the evening a candidate for local political office, an environmentally minded and intelligent citizen whom I liked and admired, passed me on the highway between Cortez, Colo., and Mancos. I was traveling somewhere between 60 and 65 mph, my usual cruising speed. He blew by me — passing over a double yellow […]
Posted inWotr
Get out of Iraq now
I’m a retired Air Force colonel and a teacher, and over the years I?ve taught a great many people about the military, sometimes starting out with a quote from Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer Abroad”: “I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says ‘Yes, the little ones does.’” That […]
Posted inWotr
Could it be Apocalypto for the Southwest?
Thanks to Hollywood movies showing the first North Americans as wandering hunters grunting to each other, Westerners may perhaps be forgiven for failing to appreciate the urban civilizations that arose in the New World long before Europeans arrived. Now, moviegoers have a chance to correct this oversight by seeing “Apocalypto,” Mel Gibson’s gruesome depiction of […]
Posted inWotr
Injustice on the Great Plains
I wasn’t born soon enough to be a cowboy on the West’s old open range. But for the last 10 years, I’ve been lucky enough to help gather a herd of up to 500 bison every fall on 30 square miles of Montana prairie. I live on the reservation, though I’m not a Native American, […]
Posted inWotr
Sharing jurisdiction is the worst thing for thenation’s bison range
Through the years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hasn’t been known for a willingness to stand up to political pressure. So I was surprised in mid-December when the agency took back control of the National Bison Range in Montana. Until then, it had been operating the refuge jointly with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s not allow winter’s quiet to be shattered everywhere
As an outdoor educator, I receive questions about cross-country skiing every winter. Lately, one common question is: “Where do I go to get away from snowmobiles?” Unfortunately, the fact is that there are fewer and fewer places on the West’s national forests where we can enjoy the natural peace and quiet of winter. We are […]
Posted inWotr
Hold on: I’m on my cell
In the last year I’ve done something that deeply offends some of my small-town neighbors: I’ve acquired a cell phone. Back when I was among the land-lined gentry, I used to think a cell phone was a reflection of lifestyle. People with mobile lifestyles — you commute to work, step out to meetings, travel to […]
Posted inWotr
Dick Cheney was right
President Bush’s idea that voluntary corporate efforts can stop climate change is wrong, and it’s wrong because Dick Cheney was right. That paradox, along with a new Congress and many progressive Western governors, may outline a path to a real climate policy in 2007. The vice President famously called most conservation measures “a personal virtue” […]
Posted inWotr
One oil change ago
I’m not really sure how I met Jim. Like everything else in life, it was probably through a series of bad choices, weak will and cosmic roulette. I probably should have said “no.” I probably should have moved on. I probably should have done a lot of things differently, but that’s how you end up […]