A wintry gathering As a gentle snow fell from a gray winter sky, 130 High Country News readers and friends jammed into the Cache La Poudre Grange in Bellvue, Colo., just outside Fort Collins. They brought splendid food and drink (thanks, New Belgium Brewery!), and a bevy of story ideas for the HCN staff. Issues […]
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Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
The wild card
As the Wilderness Act nears its 40th anniversary, protecting wild lands requires a new kind of deal-making.
Posted inWotr
For wet or for dry
I was pushed out of New York 30 years ago. I couldn’t take the city as it was, and I couldn’t change to meet New York on its terms. We moved to Colorado, where a mountain loomed in our backyard. There were challenges, of course. A tiny coal-mining town is alien to someone raised on […]
Posted inWotr
Lake Powell: Going, going, gone?
Who would have believed it? Water levels at Lake Powell have dropped to 50 percent for the first time since it filled in 1980. This draining is likely to continue to the point where the reservoir could vanish in the next three-to-four years. With snowpacks below 25 percent of normal, and continued warnings from the […]
Posted inWotr
A report from Nebraska, deep in drought
We’re dying out here. Thirsty grasses crunch underfoot, ground into sand that hasn’t gathered sufficient moisture to generate seed for new growth. Dried water holes wear wrinkled remnants of last summer’s mud, and powdery alkali sifts in our ever-present wind. Topsoil flies skyward from fields that never should have seen a plow. It’s a familiar […]
Posted inWotr
Of Western myth and jackalopes
“Are there jackalope around here?” the dude from Chicago asked. “Well, up here there’s too much elevation. They’re down on the sagebrush flats.” from Jackalope by Hilda Volk On Jan. 6, 2003, the West lost one of its great mythmakers, 82-year-old Douglas Herrick, of Casper, Wyo. No, Herrick wasn’t a writer, an artist, or a […]
Posted inWotr
A lesson in aridity from Wallace Stegner
The wisest man and best writer the West has produced was born this week 94 years ago. He died in 1993, but left us a massive inheritance, including Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Angle of Repose, Wolf Willow and From the Uneasy Chair. You can celebrate his Feb. 18 birthday by reading one of these books […]
Posted inWotr
A lesson in engagement from Mary Page Stegner
Who do we believe? How do we behave? These are questions I hold as we watch President Bush make his case for war. Our Department of Homeland Security recently placed us on “high alert/code orange,” advised us to buy duct tape and cover our windows with plastic, then in the same breath told us not […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Living in harm’s way
Unlike water, denial is in excess supply in California. Half the residents west of the 100th meridian live in that state, and 80 percent of them live in areas that have been rattled by major earthquakes. Northern Californians, for example, straddle 60 miles of the deadly Hayward fault; the late Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
It wasn’t environmental racism
Dear HCN, A recent High Country News article about the Northern Cheyenne tribe’s battles over coal (HCN, 1/20/03: A breath of fresh air) includes an allegation by Gail Small that the settlement of the New World Mine battle near Yellowstone National Park several years ago was an example of “environmental racism” because the conservation groups […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Anti-immigration myopia
Dear HCN, Phil Cafaro’s letter “Real environmentalists don’t support immigration” and Ed Marston’s column on a similar topic (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart) strike me as a tad myopic. Are the lands in the West more worthy of preservation than those in Mexico; does not putting up barriers to […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Build wealth, not walls
Dear HCN, I hope Ed Marston found his confession about his “change of heart” regarding immigration therapeutic (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart). Rather than wring his hands in public, he should take his ideas to their logical conclusion: a 30-foot border wall and citizenship for immigrants that have their […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Keep questioning the establishment
Dear HCN, Just wanted to let you know what a great article I thought the essay “Fenced out of Bush’s gated empire” by Mary Sojourner was (HCN, 11/11/02: Fenced out of Bush’s gated empire). With so much pressure being put on publishers to only report that which is favorable for the ruling establishment and their political causes, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Beyond rangeland conflict
Dear HCN, The debate over cows on public lands (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE) missed the best book I’ve yet read on the subject. HCN probably reviewed it back in 1995 when it was published, but its emphasis on national dialogue between opposing factions and realistically looking at what actually happens on the ground […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Condos or cows? Neither!
Dear HCN, Ranching advocates like Ed Marston and Rick Knight present a faulty argument when they assert that ranching can prevent sprawl (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE). If we wish to prevent sprawl and its effects — a worthy goal — we need to implement effective land-conservation strategies. Ranching as a land-preservation strategy is […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Author says we’ll ‘match the scenery’ whether we like it or not
Wallace Stegner citations are a commonplace in High Country News. Stegner, a writer and historian, is our bard (if we have one), and perhaps most familiar to HCN readers for his call to Westerners to create a “society to match the scenery.” Now comes a Colorado writer who quietly turns this idea on its head. […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Living in harm’s way
Unlike water, denial is in excess supply in California. Half the residents west of the 100th meridian live in that state, and 80 percent of them live in areas that have been rattled by major earthquakes. Northern Californians, for example, straddle 60 miles of the deadly Hayward fault; the late Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Memories of a native river
The Columbia River today is tamed: Dams regulate water for farms and generate electricity. Rapids are a thing of the past. The wild salmon still left in the river have to be barged upstream to spawn. But, if you flip the pages of William D. Layman’s coffee-table book, Native River, and allow yourself to be […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Eco-groovy food for skinny wallets
While your favorite organic food brand guarantees a pesticide-free, responsibly grown product, it’s usually fortified with a hefty price tag. There’s relief: The Portland, Ore.-based Food Alliance offers consumers and farmers a label — guaranteeing products grown and harvested in equitable and safe conditions, using sustainable farming practices, and with little or no pesticides — […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Born to be winter wild
For years, the only national organization representing winter recreation required members to embrace the two-stroke engine. But two years ago, a group of backcountry winter-recreation groups in California, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada united to create the Winter Wildlands Alliance to work for “human-powered” winter recreation on public lands. Today, the Boise, Idaho-based Alliance serves as […]