Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark.” Four years ago, the late historian Steven Ambrose took his rawhide-tassel jacket on a lecture swing through the Western states, warning of “crowds beyond any of our imagining” when the bicentennial of the 1804 Lewis […]
Bicentennial bash is more than a party for tribes
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Lewis and Clark: Just another cog in the wheel of history
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark.” If American history west of the Mississippi “begins” with Lewis and Clark, then Indian history and, by extension, the history of the United States seems pretty simple: “Indians owned the West, and then they lost […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Taking the load off the environment
BASALT, Colorado — Jonathan Fox-Rubin wants to start a revolution in car manufacturing. In his sunlit office in western Colorado he explains his approach to the weighty question of how to make cars easier on the environment: He goes straight to the body of the car. If the skeletal system of automobiles can be made […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Tribes turn out to vote
Indians could decide tight races in key Western states
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Court says Yucca Mountain design unsafe
The site’s 10,000-year safety standard is ruled arbitrary, but the Energy Department is undeterred
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Truce holds on the Platte River
Environmentalists and farmers take a leap of faith for the sake of staying out of the courtroom
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Park police chief canned for candidness
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “National parks pinching pennies.” U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers didn’t know what to expect when she reported to the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy, on Dec. 5, 2003. “I had […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
National parks pinching pennies
Former Park Service employees say headquarters is hiding budget woes
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Feds pass roadless headache to states
States may have a say in forest protection — but can they afford it?
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Dear friends
WALKING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING In mid-July, Blake Chambliss came through Paonia while out on a 800-mile walk around Colorado. The retired architect is trying to raise awareness of the state’s “affordable housing crisis.” Housing is considered affordable if it eats up less than a third of your monthly paycheck, he said. A quarter of Colorado […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Commemorate or celebrate?
Last week, as I finished pulling together the essays on Lewis and Clark for this issue of the paper, a press release crossed my desk from the National Council for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. “Not Semantics: Commemorate vs. Celebrate,” read the headline. The release quoted council vice president Roberta Conner, an enrolled member of […]
Posted inWotr
The last best-paid place in the West
Every winter my brother Tom goes to a muzzleloader shoot in central Oregon, where he camps out in a large tent, dons his feathered hat and buckskin leggings and fringed jacket, and shoots his black powder rifle at targets tucked away in the junipers and sagebrush. He usually calls me in Idaho after he returns […]
Posted inWotr
A tale of two Yellowstones
The ice cream cones were super-sized, and my two young daughters’ faces lit up as they held them in their hands. We walked out the door of the Old Faithful Lodge and headed down the paved path to the official viewing area. About 1,000 people had gotten there before us and were now sitting and […]
Posted inWotr
A Utah rancher’s secret was a gift to us
Trying to keep a secret is almost impossible these days, but rancher Waldo Wilcox kept a good one for half a century. Last month, when his secret was finally revealed, it became the second biggest global, online news story of the day. Here’s what it was: Since 1951, Wilcox has protected one of the most […]
Posted inWotr
Here come the wolves
Wolves are once again loping through Colorado and Utah, and I suppose I should be glad. More rapidly than it took to wipe out grizzlies, lynx and other competitor species, wolves are returning to the ark of the Southern Rockies ecosystem. But yet I pause, and an absorbing four-minute film I saw recently gets at […]
Posted inWotr
Bumper stickers and the politics of rage
“You’ll be lucky to get out of South Dakota alive,” the professor said, looking at one of my bumper stickers. He smiled, adding, “I may be kidding.” This was not my first warning that this bumper sticker might be dangerous. Leaving that small college campus, I was thoughtful. My cars have carried the same message […]
Posted inWotr
Once burned, twice shy
The more I learn about the Forest Service’s approach to the aftermath of the Biscuit fire in Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest, the greater my sense that history is about to repeat itself. Some people might wonder why a 55-year-old man living in a cabin surrounded by Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest would have such a keen […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
An antidote to despair
Chip Ward’s first book, Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, was decidedly grim, detailing his fight to keep the deserts of Utah from becoming a dump for toxins ranging from radioactive waste to defunct biochemical weapons. His new book, Hope’s Horizon, gives us a brighter view of recent environmental battles, taking an […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Calendar
The World Renewable Energy Congress and Expo will be held in Denver from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3. Workshops will focus on a wide range of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, fuel cells, wave energy, biomass and more.303-275-3781 www.nrel.gov/wrec. Oregon State University is sponsoring a class on timber and forestland appraisal, “The […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
A new twist on urbanism
Few people would connect “New Urbanism” — dense, mixed-use buildings and public transit in pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods — with the Latino barrios of Western cities. One Southern California-based group, however, sees this planning movement and Latino culture as nothing but simpatico. The Transportation and Land Use Collaborative has organized an annual conference and a series of […]