See these rare color photographs of the early West.
Arts & Culture
Posted inArticles
Border wall divides lands, but not culture
A wall bars the physical passage of people in a park near San Diego— but music scales that barrier.
Posted inAugust 8, 2016: Line of Descent
See wind power’s eerie beauty
A new exhibit, Harnessing the Wind, looks at Western landscapes now marked by wind turbines.
Posted inJuly 25, 2016: Salmon Power
The Chickadee Symphony
A composer reflects on three decades of birdsong.
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Photos: A look at the West’s weirdest sports
People compete in everything from pumpkin racing to outhouse sledding.
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Ranch Diaries: The ranching-writing life
Somewhere in the midst of the business of ranching I have to figure out a way to keep writing.
Posted inJune 27, 2016: The New Advocates
Meet the group that’s turning artists into nature’s advocates
In the backcountry, an experiment in using art to elevate environmental issues.
Posted inJune 27, 2016: The New Advocates
Nature’s worth, through filmmakers’ eyes
A new wave of outdoor films encompass both conservation and adventure.
Posted inMay 30, 2016: Trial by Fire
Photos: Three years with New Mexico’s Hispanic communities
A photographer’s nostalgic look back at time spent with Nuevomexicanos.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: The peculiar confines of cowboy culture
I see my 19-year-old self in our new intern, as she builds her skills and learns the ropes of ranch etiquette.
Posted inMay 16, 2016: Grizzly Face-Off
Real predators don’t eat popsicles
Once again, in Zootopia, Disney’s view of nature is sanitized and out of touch.
Posted inMay 2, 2016: The Gold King Reckoning
Meet one of the great forgotten Western painters
Frank Mechau, who died in 1946 at age 42, saw the West through an unusual lens.
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In Washington, the Nooksack 306 fight to stay in their tribe
An internecine battle rages over tribal membership and identity.
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No, national parks are not America’s ‘best idea’
There’s potential to alienate people who value ideas more pertinent to them than the parks.
Posted inApril 4, 2016: A Land Divided
A photographer turns his lens on small-town bliss
A new exhibit in Denver, Colorado, looks at happiness in the rural West, focusing on Bliss, Idaho.
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Podcast: The last Nevada showgirl revue came to a close this year
Preserving showgirl culture, amidst lasting discomfort around the tradition.
Posted inMarch 21, 2016: Making Sense of Malheur
Crime and grit: A retrospective collection from the don of Chicano noir
An uneven but often rewarding collection from one of the West’s masterful storytellers.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
Whiteness reigns in a new film celebrating national parks
The new film National Parks Adventure aims to inspire its viewers, as producer Shaun MacGillivray puts it, “to get off their couches and get outdoors.” Its destination of choice is our national parks, which are celebrating 100 years of management by the National Park Service in 2016. MacGillivray and his crew used every IMAX 3-D […]
Posted inFebruary 22, 2016: Fractured
The time of painful impossibilities
A reading by U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.
Posted inArticles
Dispatch from Nevada’s cowboy poets confab
An older generation of artists looks for a younger set to take over the tradition.