Open a Wenatchee, Wash., phone book and you might want to take a bite out of it. A fragrance strip has been applied to the front cover, and instead of perfume, this one sends out succulent molecules of green-apple aroma. That’s fitting, says Jim Hail, co-owner of Hagedone Directries Inc., who came up with the […]
Heard Around the West
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
While the nation goes to war, the Pentagon lobs bombs at environmental laws
The first time I saw the movie Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick’s satirical depiction of Cold War America, I was too young to fully understand it. I watched it a second time while in college during the Clinton years, and found the flick brilliant, even […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
A small-town mayor challenges developers
Community discovers that once you’re on the growth train, it’s hard to get off
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The hunt is on for a mystery killer
Leukemia cluster has Nevada town thirsty for answers
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The best restoration tools are fangs and claws
The first thing I did when I got to Glacier National Park was go out for a run. It seemed like the obvious thing to do. I’d just graduated from college in New England, packed my belongings and spent three hard days driving West across the Plains. I was dying to get back to the […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Dear Friends
This isn’t the first time … Just when you think you’re doing something really revolutionary, you learn it’s all been done before. In preparation for redesigning High Country News, we dug back into the archives to see what the paper has looked like over the 33 years of its existence. It turns out this won’t […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Tinkering with Nature
Can we leave wildlife to its own devices, or must we continue to meddle?
Posted inWotr
Skiing with the oldsters
Today, I got on a ski lift with a man who turned out to be a World War II fighter pilot. I couldn’t believe my ears. Three elderly gents had lined up with me to take a quad chair up the mountain, my only time with company on the lifts all day. We did the […]
Posted inWotr
If wolves can return to the West, why not New York?
Eight years after a wolf walked out of a pen and howled in Yellowstone National Park, it is clear the predators are here to stay. The restoration of wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone in 1995 has been wildly successful, even though many Westerners remain bitter about an intrusive federal government. Now, a decision announced earlier […]
Posted inWotr
Mention planning in Oregon and get ready for a yawn
Advice for party-goers: If you’re hoping to enthrall acquaintances and potential dates, avoid the terms “urban-growth boundary or “transit-oriented development.” While working recently on a story about Oregon’s land-use system, I was eager to share my findings at social occasions. Bad idea. Few Oregonians understand how it works, and my attempts at conversation yielded polite […]
Posted inWotr
Motorized rafts bring the public to enjoy Grand Canyon’s wonders
The National Park Service is now designing a new plan for managing whitewater river trips through the Grand Canyon. But in pursuit of a no-compromise agenda, a small group of wilderness advocates would like the clean, quiet, low-powered and environmentally friendly motors used on these trips banned. They’d like most of the park, including 240 […]
Posted inWotr
Grand Canyon and motorboats don’t mix
Last fall, standing on the traditional scouting point high above Grand Canyon’s legendary rapid, Lava Falls, we debated our course. Low water relieved us of the agony of choice: The left run, a maze of boulders, was too treacherous; we resigned ourselves to paddling the right-hand run through Lava’s thundering mayhem. Thirty years of river- […]
Posted inWotr
Living with bison at the edge of Yellowstone
Forty bison mill about on the football field at the school in Gardiner, Mont. One of the shaggy beasts rubs her head vigorously against the goalpost. A light snow is falling. I walk over and sit on a nearby boulder. I feel that it is the least I can do — just sit in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Ranching is preventing sprawl
Dear HCN, George Wuerthner is a skilled photographer and a committed activist, but he’s a lousy economist. His letter (HCN, 2/17/03: Condos or cows? Neither!) and his recent book, Welfare Ranching, amply testify to this. Wuerthner asserts that “ranching isn’t preventing sprawl now, nor will it in the future.” Yet he also states that high […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
American culture is doomed by growth
Dear HCN, Ed Marston, I want to thank you for your column on immigration and overpopulation (HCN, 2/3/03: Son of immigrants has a change of heart). I’m sure you have taken a lot of criticism since then, but you are right in what you’ve said. Overall, people refuse to admit that every problem in the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Short Takes
Learn more about the benefits and challenges of local food production at the “Connecting Through Local Foods” conference, March 28-29, at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. The conference will feature keynote speaker Gary Paul Nabhan, and cover topics from seed saving to farm bills, and marketing to alternative pest control. For more […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Tangled up in blue
“It has been rightly said: Color is the first principle of place.” A quick look across any desert reveals a lack of watery blues and leafy greens. But Ellen Meloy fills that void in her memoir, The Anthropology of Turquoise. She uses turquoise — the color and the mineral — to explore desert geology, flora […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Does your representative make the grade?
It’s report card time again for Congress, and Western politicians are seeing more Fs than As. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ annual National Environmental Scorecard, Western congressional members had some of the worst environmental voting records in the nation. Out of a possible score of 100, the senators of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
White House record on rollbacks
It’s undoubtedly grim reading. But it should be required for every conservationist — Democrat, Green, Republican or Independent. The Natural Resources Defense Council has just released its review of the Bush administration’s 2002 record on the environment. In Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment, the council details more than 100 federal […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened […]