For naturalist Susan Tweit, moving to New Mexico meant learning to love the harsh beauty of a landscape that one haggard 19th century surveyor dismissed as “barren, wild, and worthless.” That bitter phrase became the title of Tweit’s eloquent 1995 memoir on life in the Chihuahuan Desert. Taken in by her masterful prose, readers, too, […]
Barren, wild and worthless? Anything but
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Gulf of California Dreamin’
No river in the United States has been as aggressively seized for human use as the Colorado — and shelves of books have been written to tell the story. But what becomes of the river once it flows out of the U.S. and into Mexico has received considerably less print. Now, Defenders of Wildlife has […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Happy Sounds in Arizona
Yee ha. I picked up the new HCN and began making little inarticulate whimpers of sheer pleasure. The new design is wonderful, classy, befitting the amazing writers who grace its pages. Mary Sojourner Flagstaff, Arizona This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Happy Sounds in Arizona.
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
A better read
Just received my May 26th issue. The “New Look.” Awesome, dude! Well done. Kudos. Your farsighted reporting is much easier to read for this nearsighted person who now wears reading glasses! Keep up the great work. I have always looked forward to each issue … now, more than ever. Karole Lee Clancy, Montana This article appeared in […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Go Natives!
Thanks so much for the recent cover article on native vs. exotic plant species (HCN, 5/12/03: Planting time). The author effectively described ways that invasive grasses damage ecosystems — very well explained for the lay reader. And I love the positive side that the article focused on. I didn’t realize how many of the exotics […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
The grief is real
I realize that it’s slightly odd to respond to another letter, but Wayne A. Gilbert’s observations in the April 28 edition moved me. He said, “I realized my weariness was really sorrow and loss and longing. My loss of faith in public acts wasn’t some moral failing; it was a symptom of my grief.” I […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
The best memorial
Responding to fellow soldier Martin Murie’ s proposal to restore the natural (wilderness) balance of the World War II Camp Hale military site (HCN, 3/31/03: A citizen soldier looks beyond war), I can clearly remember two years of great mountain military training there prior to our commitment to the Italian theatre in 1944. I certainly […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
A dirty use for Clean Water Act money?
Watershed managers in northern New Mexico are mounting a pre-emptive strike this spring with a forest-thinning project that aims to reduce wildfire risk. In February, the Forest Service began a thinning project in the Santa Fe National Forest, which surrounds the city’s municipal water supply. The Santa Fe Watershed Association, a local grassroots group, secured […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
County commission stands down on gas wells
Last summer, Colorado’s Delta County Commission made history when it denied state-approved drilling permits for four out of five coalbed methane wells (HCN, 9/2/02: One Colorado County Takes a Stand). The commissioners cited concerns about drilling’s impacts on water quality. But in May, they backed down. County Attorney Brad Kolman says they didn’t have much […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Mammoth airport expansion on hold
Conservationists recently won a round in their fight to curb expansion at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. In April, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration violated federal law when it chose not to conduct a full-scale environmental impact statement on the proposal to expand Mammoth-Yosemite Airport on the east side of […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Park Service guts budget to fight terrorism
The National Park Service plans to cut millions of dollars in trail and building repairs to cover its share of the “war on terror.” Since 2001, the Park Service has moved more of its rangers to parks with international borders and high-profile icon parks such as the Statue of Liberty. As rangers are reassigned, their […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
The Latest Bounce
The nation will now be safe — from endangered species such as red-legged frogs, southwestern willow flycatchers and manatees. Congress has exempted the military from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (HCN, 3/31/03: While the nation goes to war, the Pentagon lobs bombs at environmental laws). Although miffed that environmental rollbacks […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Heard Around the West
CALIFORNIA If you protest acts of violence, does that make you a violent person? The answer is yes, according to the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center. The center warned Oakland police that an anti-war protest planned for the city’s port might turn violent, even though there was no evidence that demonstrators intended to do anything but […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Why I fight: The coming gas explosion in the West
Here’s what I once believed: that if the president knew about the damage done to our land by the energy industry, the damage would cease. I once believed that if you could show that industry can extract gas without damaging land right near us — as it does on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, and […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Seeing the mysterious in the everyday
Someday, everything is gonna be different / When I paint my masterpiece. — Bob Dylan It’s late at night in the green springtime, and I’m wide awake in the studio, Van Morrison on the CD player and a pastel painting slowly coming to life on the easel before me. Hayfields and a line of cottonwoods, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Love and loathing on the interstate highways
At a conference several years ago, we were given crayons and sheets of white paper and asked to draw our visions of utopia. This was in the West, so of course a great many rustic cabins in meadows far removed from civilization were sketched onto these sheets. Not mine. Yes, of course, I had hills […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Running home
It’s been four years since I touched human bone, since I had silt and clay stuck beneath my fingernails and inside the cracked skin of my knuckles — silt and clay that had cradled bones for hundreds of years. I used to work as a contract archaeologist, scanning the landscape for petroglyphs and fire rings, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
A ‘nature girl’ remembers a dying lumber town
I never got over Hilt. It is as real to me now, when it no longer exists, as it was when I was 3 years old, or 6, or 12. I see it, sometimes, with an aching intensity that will not go away, so that the little valley beside Cottonwood Creek comes back to me […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Tourist tales from the New West
I knew I was in trouble the first morning of our cruise. We were headed up the Columbia and Snake rivers on a Lewis and Clark bicentennial expedition, and this well-dressed widow sat down beside me at breakfast. Her diamond ring was the size of an unshelled peanut, and her hair matched the silver flatware […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Giant sequoias could get the ax
In a national monument, the Forest Service wants to cut trees to save them