“I want to see people enjoy this country the way it was meant to be enjoyed, the way God created it,” says Tim Faber, speaking about Montana’s arid, rough-hewn Missouri River Breaks. “It’s a place like no other place in the world.” Faber grew up on a cattle ranch in the Bear’s Paw Mountains east […]
‘Redneck liberal’ defends a hard-to-love landscape
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Developers push ahead with mammoth ski village
Feds say they’re largely powerless to regulate impacts of ‘The Village at Wolf Creek’
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Split-estate rebellion: Ranchers take on energy developers
By threatening to bring the fight to voters, landowners may force the Legislature to regulate drilling
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Bush’s second-term shake-ups
The political appointments you don’t hear about — and how they affect the West
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Reawakening our wild humanity
I stepped onto the front porch to the bugling of an elk early one morning this week. As the eerie fluting carried over the gray, frozen hayfield, something fired briefly in my brain — perhaps some ancient instinct dulled by the years I’ve spent inside buildings, staring at computers, or behind the wheel of a […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Caught in the Headlights
A personal obsession leads one woman into a world of scientists, wildlife rehabilitators and eccentrics who are mesmerized by the often bloody relationship between wildlife and roads
Posted inWotr
Drive-up nature is better than nothing
The woman dubbed “eagle lady” grabbed a chunk of fish and threw it out on the sand in front of her trailer. Fifteen bald eagles immediately jumped off their perches and flew into a scuffle for the meat. A large, younger eagle, its feathers still gray-brown and mottled, emerged with the prize clamped in its […]
Posted inWotr
Surprise: Easterners balk at a giant wind farm
While Wyoming ranchers and hunters are facing off with gas companies eager to drill their rangelands and hunting grounds, Massachusetts lobster barons are facing their own showdown with an energy juggernaut. Has the West found an ally in Eastern blue bloods and politicians such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.? Not exactly. In Wyoming’s Powder River […]
Posted inWotr
Global warming brings a clash of civilizations
Global warming is not just another issue in a long line of environmental problems that have received attention starting with Earth Day 1970. With honor and respect to all the great environmental victories, and to the people who fought for them, we feel that global warming will take a revolution in the way we see […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s hunt wild bison instead of plugging them where they stand
I’m a hunter, and I believe that the recent decision by Montana’s officials to postpone a bison hunt near Yellowstone was a stroke of bold leadership. It was also downright gutsy and the right thing to do. It earned Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the state game commission a lot of uninformed criticism. They’ve been […]
Posted inWotr
Jackalope hops into the heady world of official myth
The Wyoming Legislature is coming close to declaring the jackalope the state’s official mythical creature. A ferocious jackrabbit with horns, the jackalope was first portrayed by taxidermist Douglas Herrick in 1939, and now adorns gift shops and tacky postcards all over the state. An eight-foot jackalope statue greets entrants to the Wyoming State Fair, and […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s not ram more boats through the Grand Canyon
Each year, nearly 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon, most traveling to the South Rim where they spend as much time looking for a parking place as they do looking at the canyon. Only a few venture below the rim on a trail. Another 22,000 people a year see the canyon from the bottom […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
One with Ninevah: Politics, Consumption and the Human Future
One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption and the Human Future Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich 447 pages, hardcover $27 Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2004. This husband-and-wife team at Stanford University lays out the ways in which the human race is jeopardizing its place on earth. Looking at everything from consumption and birthrates to “sustainable governance” and […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
A Place to Stand
A Place to Stand Jimmy Santiago Baca 264 pages, hardcover $24. Grove Press, 2004. If you think your own busy life offers challenges, open Baca’s latest book and be very grateful. Baca is not only New Mexico’s finest poet and homegrown writer, but an ex-con whose memoir will stun those of us who think we […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action
Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action Edited by Anne Waldman and Lisa Birman 469 pages, softcover $18. Coffee House Press, 2004. This anthology contains 40 essays, lectures and interviews with notables such as Gary Snyder, Joanne Kyger and Bobbie Louise Hawkins. In need of some raucous poetry, fiery speeches and a few good reasons […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Capturing a Chediskai childhood
Eva Tulene Watt was born in 1913 on the Fort Apache Reservation, just north of the Salt River in southeastern Arizona. She’s traveled far during her long life, living and working in Spokane, Wash., Stillwell, Okla., and San Francisco, Calif., among other places. But her home has always been in and around the small reservation […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Seeing through red vs. blue
In the article “Election Day Surprises in the Schizophrenic West,” HCN has done something that none of the national news sources has done (HCN, 11/22/04: Election Day Surprises in the Schizophrenic West). You have gone beyond the red/blue label for states and given an excellent summary of the November election results. It is rather sad […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Good riddance to land-use rules
The essay by Rebecca Clarren on Measure 37 strikes a particular chord with me, because I am an offspring of one of those rural Oregonians that have sacrificed a lot to allow those fine “enlightened” city folk from the Willamette Valley to experience the beauty and serenity of Oregon’s unspoiled countryside (HCN, 9/22/04: In Oregon, […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Let’s march!
Just a note to say “Thanks” for the thoughtful suggestion to rally folks around environmental issues (HCN, 12/6/04: Taking the West Forward). My entire professional life, and now my time in retirement, has been focused on restoring and protecting the environment. I’ve never been as discouraged as I am now about where our country is […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
‘Healthy forests’ is a scam
I would gladly learn to love the Healthy Forests Restoration Act if it were truly designed to promote healthy forests. Instead, the act provides cover for logging the remaining large trees in our national forests in the name of fuels reduction. What’s next — HCN endorsement of the president’s Clear Skies Initiative? David Edelson, Sierra […]