If the American West were to adopt a secular, flawed, feet-of-clay patron saint, John Wesley Powell, whose March 24th birthday just passed, would be the man. Powell, who was born in 1834 and died in 1902, epitomized grit and courage, qualities the West likes to honor. He lost an arm at Shiloh commanding a battery […]
Saint Contrary: John Wesley Powell
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Heard around the West
The fun of fast and fearless driving is fizzling out in Montana. On May 28, the state’s dubious distinction as the only state in the nation without a daytime speed limit will come to an end. Montana Gov. Marc Racicot signed legislation making the daytime limit 75 mph on interstate highways and 70 mph on […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
A history of how a grassroots rebellion won a water war
I made the mistake of reading Peter Carrels’ Uphill Against Water not long after I’d read David Remnick’s Lenin’s Tomb, his account of the fall of the Soviet Union, and at times had trouble remembering whether I was in South Dakota or in the old U.S.S.R. Of course, in South Dakota, political opponents were not […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Strangling the Last Best River
Montana statesman Mike Mansfield, summing up the highlights of his career in the U.S. Senate, claimed to be most proud that he “had saved the Yellowstone River from the Corps of Engineers.” But while the Yellowstone is still the longest undammed river in the Lower 48, it is now a long way from “saved.” A […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Gold mine capsizes in Westwater Canyon
Kayakers and rafters are planning celebratory boat trips down Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River this spring. As they float past the redrock walls, they can look around and see, well … othing. Their joy stems from the recent removal of mine claims situated on 960 acres in the canyon, within a wilderness study area. […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Dear Friends
Report from the trash patrol A Saturday morning spent cleaning up two miles of State Highway 133 created a variety of reactions among the participants. Some of us came away satisfied. All of us came away hot and dirty. But Betsy Offermann came away determined: “The next time I see someone litter, I’m going to […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
In the ’90s, trapping still has a role
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The heyday of the mountain man lasted only a few decades, ending in the 1830s, when both the market and the supply of beaver fizzled out. But the tradition lives on. In towns around the West, and even in the Midwest, “mountain men” celebrate […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
A Wyoming trapper seeks pelts, and beauty
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. You can hear the pleasure in his voice. “Look at those beauties. Hello, ladies, hello, you beautiful things,” says Tom Lucas. Five bighorn ewes wander away from us, only slightly alarmed at two humans in their territory. “I just love seeing wildlife.” Tom Lucas […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Trapping in the United States
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Long before Europeans came to the North American continent, natives were using traps to catch animals and fish. Eskimos used whalebone nooses to snare waterfowl, the Hopis used dead-fall rock slabs to kill fox and Aleutian Indians used barbed spikes to catch bears. According […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Is trapping doomed?
The day after Christmas 1997 is a day that Liz Kehr shudders to remember. Kehr and her husband, Kevin Feist, live in the Flathead Valley in northwestern Montana, snug against Glacier National Park. It’s a place where publicly owned land stretches for miles in all directions, though in the past 10 years the valley has […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Consensus is not the answer
Dear HCN, I enjoy High Country News, but am continually dismayed by your promotion of consensus. Wallace Stegner once characterized the American West as “stretches of picturesque poverty.” It is the most salient fact about the West. And the fact most missing when visionaries talk about what the West should be. The idea that public […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Junk mail can save you money
Dear HCN, I think your readers who are complaining about receiving too much junk mail are possibly taking the wrong attitude toward this matter (HCN, 2/1/99). Think positively! I remember hearing about a man who intentionally got his name onto as many catalog mailing lists, etc., as he could. He heated his house with a […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
An abnormal hunter responds
Dear HCN, The last time I heard a spiel like Marc Gaede’s letter, a male forester was telling me that women shouldn’t be foresters because the cave MAN went out and clubbed the mammoths (HCN, 3/1/99). Give me a break. Gaede chooses to define “hunting” only as the tracking and killing of large animals by […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
The joy of hunting
Dear HCN, Please allow me to respond to the letter from Marc Gaede which addresses hunting (HCN, 3/1/99). I find Mr. Gaede’s remarks fascinating. I also sense an unhealthy anger towards hunters simmering just beneath the surface of his views. I suggest the cure for this anger is for the inflicted to spend a day […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Not our photographer
Dear HCN, In your article, “A Question of Photography Ethics,” reporter Dan Oko unfairly impugns the integrity of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) over a bear photograph which he charges was taken in an unethical manner and subsequently appeared in National Wildlife magazine. But Mr. Oko leaves out some important facts. First, the photographer in […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Outdoor writers and prairie dogs
Dear HCN, We recently became aware of a “Heard Around the West” article in your publication that addressed the upcoming Outdoor Writers of America Association conference in Sioux Falls (HCN, 3/1/99). The Outdoor Writers of America Association did not plan the prairie dog shooting trip you mentioned in your article and the excursion does not […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Not many fun-hogs here
Dear HCN, In response to Michael Cohen’s letter, (HCN, 3/l/99), Mr. Cohen needn’t worry about recreational fun-hogs filling the Escalante River Canyons. Aside from Coyote Gulch being overrun, in my 28 years of backpacking the Escalante River, I have never seen more than a handful of people, and most of them were up Death Hollow, […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Lose the gratuitous racism
Dear HCN, In Dustin Solberg’s story about alternative forest products on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation – where one-third of the people live below the poverty line – I was angered by the author’s comment, “whether (earnings from the sale of coneflowers are) spent on school clothes or 12-packs, everyone seems to like the new […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Secretary Babbitt meets a tough crowd
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt got an earful when he announced his plans for a new national monument on the Shivwits Plateau, or “Arizona Strip” north of the Grand Canyon. About 500 people packed a meeting March 8 in the Cline Library at Northern Arizona University to debate the proposal. Calling the plateau […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Tree lovers are willing to pay
Washington’s Loomis State Forest has 25,000 roadless acres, and environmentalists say they’ll spend millions to preserve it. In just a few months, the Loomis Forest Fund raised $3 million, but contributors say they need $10.1 million more to compensate the state for the cash it could make by logging. The forest, which borders Canada, is […]