WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a modern brick building across Lafayette Park from the White House, on a one-block street called Madison Place, several judicial officers of the United States government are engaged in a … in a … well, in what seems to be a conspiracy to subvert it. Not doing a bad job of […]
The quiet Takings Project is trespassing on democracy
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Tribes find a future in the past
DENVER, Colo. – The students were three men and two women, all members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D. Last spring, they enrolled in a new, pilot course at their tribe’s Oglala Lakota College. This class was so unique, the professor said, it was best taught on the prairie. Some of its […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
The river comes last
Deep in the Wyoming wilderness and high above tree line, glacial cirques collect and funnel pure alpine waters from Cloud Peak’s 13,000-foot summit down to the muddy torrent of the Bighorn River. Draining north into Montana, the river transects the Crow Indian reservation, where it is joined by the Little Bighorn, famous as the site […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Dear Friends
Now hear this The half-hour Radio High Country News is expanding. Starting this month, the interview program that takes the West as its beat can be heard in Carbondale, Colo., on KDNK, Mondays at 4:30 p.m.; in Taos, N.M., and Alamosa, Colo., on KRZA, Fridays at 7 p.m.; and in Telluride, Colo., on KOTO, Tuesdays […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
‘I think we can work with ranchers’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. A fisherman and a hunter, Herb Meyr is a retired Air Force pilot in Mountain Home, Idaho, who spends a lot of his time working as a volunteer with groups such as the Idaho Wildlife Council, the Idaho chapter of Foundation for North American […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
‘We’re trying to turn up the heat’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Laird Lucas graduated from Yale Law School in 1986, worked for a federal judge, and then went into “high-pressure” litigation at a large San Francisco law firm. He has been with the nonprofit Land and Water Fund in Boise, Idaho, for the last six […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
‘Jon Marvel is the wing nut’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Based in Emmett, Idaho, Brad Little is a third-generation sheep and cattle rancher. He has been active in range-reform efforts for more than a decade; this year, he joined the board of directors of High Country News. Recently, he talked about his neighbor Jon […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
‘My response is reasonable’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. JON MARVEL: “I want to destabilize the system we’ve got now, where 20 percent of ranchers in Idaho use public lands they’ve degraded or destroyed. I think my response is reasonable – I’m reacting to large-scale abuse by a tiny group of people. “The […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Note: this feature story includes four sidebar articles: Jon Marvel, rancher Brad Little, Land and Water Fund lawyer Laird Lucas, and Air Force pilot and environmentalist Herb Meyr give their perspectives in their own words. SILVER CITY, Idaho – Imagine a silver-haired 52-year-old fellow walking into a saloon in this remote mountain town in the […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
About those park ranger hats
Dear HCN, I can definitely do without dumb poorly drawn cartoons by Jim Stiles (HCN, 5/24/99). First, I’m sure the Park Service rangers do not take it upon themselves to raise fees, and they do need more money because there are more people using our facilities. Second, they may “pack” guns because, let’s face it, […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Californicating carpetbaggers
Dear HCN, Dan Flores (-In Montana: The view from the ranchette,” HCN, 5/10/99) is technically correct when he writes that A.B. Guthrie Jr. was a Midwesterner. It is misleading, however, to accuse the author of The Big Sky of being just another hypocritical carpetbagger Californicating Montana while criticizing others for doing so. In 1901, his […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Mountaineers’ support was anything but secret
Dear HCN, Andy Wiessner needs no defense from me or any other conservationist to support his environmental credentials over many years. However, I do want to correct the erroneous and libelous comments in Ben Twight’s letter (HCN, 5/24/99) about the Mountaineers and my role in the Forest Service-Plum Creek land exchange. I have been a […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Look who’s calling who weird
Dear HCN, There is nothing “weird” about Death Valley (HCN, 5/24/99). What is weird is High Country News’ attitude about any expanse of land that does not have a bunch of trees on it. Maybe what we need is a publication called Low Country News, which will have a positive attitude regarding the deserts and […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Ranchettes got a Twinkie-defense
Dear HCN, If Susan Ewing’s soul is at rest on her 20-acre ranchette outside of Bozeman, as she claims, why did she feel the need to stage such an elaborate Twinkie-defense of living there (-My Beautiful Ranchette,” HCN, 5/10/99)? Ewing’s justification is her craving for space, her appreciation for wildlife, and her desire to “settle […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
No holes in the story
Dear HCN, I am the author of the Sierra magazine article cited as being “guilty” of “misinformation about wildlife” (HCN, 5/10/99). The story concerned the research Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns are doing with grizzly bears in Kamchatka. HCN quotes Chuck Bartlebaugh of the Center for Wildlife Information as saying that “the story is full […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Senator jumps the gun for the military
Lawmakers and environmentalists are up in arms over the future of military training grounds in the West. The excitement began this May when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., unveiled a proposal to allow the military use of 3 million acres of public land in Arizona and New Mexico. The public land includes the McGregor Range and […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Give me a home where the engines roar
A recent editorial in the weekly Bitterroot Star of Stevensville, Mont., likened a racetrack proposed for the Bitterroot Valley to “a smelly dog, running from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of a home.” Promoters first went to the Ravalli County Commission, asking to build a racetrack at the county fairgrounds in Hamilton, Mont. The commissioners […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
A peculiar fish gets a second chance
The fluvial Arctic grayling hasn’t had an easy time of it during the last 10,000 years. Left stranded in the rivers of the Northern Rockies after the last glaciers receded, it remains the only native grayling population in the lower 48 states. But the grayling almost disappeared in Montana over the last 100 years. It’s […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Governor floats a wilderness bill
In May, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt announced a 1 million-acre wilderness proposal for the West Desert, the latest step in what he calls an “incremental approach” for BLM lands. But while his proposal is supported by the Department of the Interior, it’s drawing criticism from county politicians, and it’s only a small part of the […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Mining on the run
Since Montana voters passed an initiative last November blocking certain kinds of mining, the industry has taken its hits. In the wake of a ban on new and expanded open-pit cyanide heap-leach mining, both the Montana Mining Association and the company behind the controversial McDonald gold mine have laid off employees. The mining association is […]