Every summer, my husband and I head for the woods, flushed with optimism and giddy with anticipation. The maps are crisp, the fuel cans are full and the road is open. And every summer, I forget that the reality of camping is different than that pictured in Dodge Dakota commercials and my mind. I imagine […]
Happy campers we shall always be
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Heard around the West
Even bison, it turns out, need a bailout. Too many of the big critters are raised and not enough of us want to eat them. After producing more bison-burger than the market could bear, ranchers recently asked the federal government for help – their second request in as many years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Homegrown leaders: Lakota educators bridge two worlds
ROSEBUD RESERVATION, S.D. – Sherry Red Owl’s conference room in the tribal Department of Education is chaotic, but it’s the kind of happy chaos that reflects its main obsession: the schoolchildren of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in southern South Dakota. Piles of reports, papers, pictures and boxes line the room and occupy several chairs. Wedged […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Can poverty protect the last, best place?
All who care about the non-metropolitan West should be grateful to Montanans. Within the generous confines of that 145,000 square-mile state, they are asking, in the closing days of the 20th century, whether the good life can be disconnected from the economy. They are testing whether a place that in 50 years has plunged from […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Rural Utah braces for a latter-day plague
These crickets and hoppers eat anything in front of them
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Cattlemen make use of a conservation tool
GUNNISON, Colo. – Frost gilds the branches of the elder and cottonwood trees bordering the Redden family’s pastureland as Brett Redden climbs into a tractor at dawn and delivers hay to 300 cattle. Then he goes to his “regular” job with the fire and rescue crew at Gunnison Airport. Some months he’ll pick up extra […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
A grudge against sludge
DEER TRAIL, Colo. – Crowded into a corrugated-steel firehouse, some 50 farmers and ranchers are talking strategy. They have carved a break from their 16-hour, calving-season workdays to battle a common foe, and it’s not a dismal farm economy, nor is it drought. The people gathered in this town 60 miles east of Denver, are […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
As salmon decline, feds draw the line
In northern Washington state, a 100-year-old system of irrigation ditches has turned the dry Methow Valley into a well-watered oasis. Alfalfa and oats grow on hobby farms and the water nurtures the wave of second homes popping up in this beautiful valley tucked along the eastern flank of the Cascade Range. Irrigation ditches deliver the […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Dear Friends
Look for local experts At our invitation, writer Cate Gilles stopped in for lunch and an informal seminar about reporting on Indian reservations. Cate wrote for the Navajo-Hopi Observer and the Navajo Times – and freelanced for High Country News – before heading to the University of Colorado in Boulder as a Ted Scripps Fellow […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
Dreaming the prairie back to life
Even though the second-highest point in North Dakota lies just a few miles from the dwindling town of Regent, you probably wouldn’t know that if you saw it. At 3,468 feet, Black Butte rises from rolling wheat fields like a bump under a rug. But to Gary Greff it looks like the ideal spot for […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
The disappearing farm
Can cooperatives keep rural people rooted in the plains?
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Always question land trades
Dear HCN, I want to thank writer Lynne Bama for her story on land trades, and particularly for showing the connection between 19th-century land grabs and the present-day subsidization of corporations through exchanges (HCN, 3/29/99). Lynne called me a “one-woman truth squad,” which I took as a compliment, but which belies the efforts of scores […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Let’s support taxpayer restoration
Dear HCN, Thanks for your feature on ecological restoration (-Working the Land Back to Health,” HCN, 3/1/99). However, as an ardent conservationist and a small business owner, I was annoyed by Ed Marston’s introduction. “In a time of tight public money,” he writes, “restoration depends on creating economies that can produce healthy land and profits, […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Blah, blah from the ranchette
Dear HCN, Susan Ewing’s essay on the sins of owning a ranchette in Bozeman, Mont., is typical of the self-serving confessionals I’ve grown to expect from baby boomers who lack the integrity to live up to the principles they espouse (HCN, 5/10/99). For environmentalists like Ewing, the movement isn’t about protecting ecological systems, it’s about […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Park status doesn’t guarantee anything
Dear HCN, I read with dismay Tony Davis’ article, “Plans for a new park in Arizona” (HCN, 3/29/99) on the movement to create a “Sonoran Desert National Park,” by combining Organ Pipe National Monument, Cabeza-Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. This proposal looks to me like another grandiose scheme […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
A reluctant advocate
Thank you for the marvelous huge feature on Tucson development (HCN, 1/18/99). However, I was chagrined to see the quote from Supervisor Mike Boyd, who has been opposed for years to anti-growth measures, and only under great pressure did indeed advocate the Sonoran Desert Protection Plan. During his last election cycle, Boyd came to our […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Let’s stop trapping
Dear HCN, After reading Tom Reed’s article on purposeful wildlife trapping and accidental pet dog trapping, all I can say to your headline, “Is trapping doomed?” is – not soon enough (HCN, 4/12/99). It is directly due to the activities of trappers that we now have species in trouble, like the wolf, bear, cougar, lynx, […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Powell was a fire bug
Dear HCN, John Wesley Powell was undoubtedly a giant in the exploration of, and proposals for, Western lands. The essay by William deBuys tells us that if we’d have listened to Powell, we might not have clear-cut forests and disenfranchised local communities (HCN, 4/12/99). In fact, we would have no national forests, and what forests […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Hands On Colorado: Volunteer Opportunities in 1999
To get outdoors and do some good this summer, check out Hands On Colorado: Volunteer Opportunities in 1999. This 64-page guide profiles volunteer opportunities for everything from trail building, to bat monitoring and kids’ fishing derbies. For a free copy, contact Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, 600 S. Marion Parkway, Denver, CO 80209-2597 (303/715-1010, ext. 15), […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
37th Annual Wilderness Walks
The Montana Wilderness Association is offering its 37th annual wilderness walks this summer. In places like the Bitter Creek Wilderness Study Area, you can enjoy the vast beauty of Montana’s wilderness, learn about no-trace camping skills, and enjoy celestial shows and howling coyotes. Group sizes are limited. For more information contact the Montana Wilderness Association, […]