An Alaska encounter with the fiercest of the 176 mosquito species that roam the U.S.
Essays
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
Houseboaters vs. river runners
Andrew Gulliford, a professor in Durango, Colo., spent five days last summer on a houseboat floating around Utah’s most famous party scene, Lake Powell – a reservoir on the Colorado River – and then another five running the Yampa and Green rivers on the Colorado-Utah border. Gulliford noticed sharp differences between the cultures of houseboating […]
Posted inApril 14, 2014: A landscape of surprises
How to save your town from the interstate
Tourists flocked to Winslow, Ariz., back in the golden era of cross-country rail travel, and later along the classic two-lane highway, Route 66. But now the old Valentine Diner sits empty and rusting, having long given up on luring customers off Interstate 40, which sidestepped the town in the 1970s. It’s a symbol of all […]
Posted inJune 22, 1973: The crisis in energy: stampede corralled
My neighbor is an addict
No, he’s not addicted to drugs, good whiskey, or even bad women. He is addicted to the gasoline engine and the various vehicles and devices to which it has been adapted. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/5.13/download-entire-issue
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Road Captain
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. Last night I got a phone call with the bad news that I have received what my neighbors out here in the remote Silver Hills refer to as a “redneck promotion.” To be specific, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Happy housewarming, Charlie Brown
A couple restores a Seattle home and honors the Austrian Jewish couple who once lived there.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Birthday of the burning boot
Making peace with growing older, on a hike near Patagonia, Arizona.
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The Sacramento-San Joaquin deltas of 1772 and today
Remembering explorers past of this California water source.
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
An ode to snow
Laura Pritchett on the joy of snow.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
How Vancouver, B.C. became North America’s smart-growth leader
It wasn’t visionary city officials; it was a movement to save the city’s ethnic Chinese neighborhoods in the ’60s.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Brave new L.A.
Los Angeles is an unlikely model of urban sustainability for the West and the world.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Stopping deforestation, one pair of chopsticks at a time
HCN student essay contest winner.
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Butcher of Heartache on the Bering Sea
A former newspaper copyeditor finds his way onboard a fishing boat.
Posted inDecember 9, 2013: The Tree Coroners
In defense of bibliopedestrianism
A writer’s love of reading while walking in Nevada’s Great Basin desert.
Posted inNovember 25, 2013: Ecosystems 101
On (not) being Jane Goodall
A writer wonders what it would be like to study the coati, a Southwestern cousin of the raccoon.
Posted inNovember 11, 2013: Cosmic Prospecting
Wilderness found in a BMW
I never feel more Western than when I slide through turns at High Plains Raceway.
Posted inOctober 28, 2013: Lifeblood of the Delta
Backcountry culture clashes in the North Cascades
A hunter-backpacker examines the divides between user groups.
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Dispatch from Twiggley Island: an essay
Neighbors band together to survive after the Colorado floods.
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
Marginalia: an essay
On a trek across the Arctic, a writer’s map becomes a record of the journey.