On a trek across the Arctic, a writer’s map becomes a record of the journey.
Essays
Posted inMay 26, 1986: The fate of the grizzly
At Capitol Reef, the Mormons made the desert fruitful
The largest orchard in any national park is surrounded by some of the driest desert in southern Utah. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.10/download-entire-issue
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
Reconciling family narrative with textbook history in Montana’s Bighorn Valley
An essay by Joe Wilkins.
Posted inSeptember 16, 2013: Intimate Geographies
Heart-Shaped River: Craig Childs finds his center in Canyonlands
“Not all maps are made of paper. The best ones are spooled in memory.”
Posted inSeptember 2, 2013: Of Sparrows and Sodbusters
The story of Gimpy
An injured black bear draws sympathy from the community.
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
The right-wing heiress who changed course in the desert
Looking back on Bazy Tankersley: publisher, rancher and conservationist.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
The Blue Window
Journeying from redrock desert to an icy wasteland: an essay.
Posted inArticles
Identifying ‘killer trees’ in Sequoia National Park
In the middle of August, I visit a backcountry campground in California’s Sequoia National Park to survey trees. Two teenage boys nap while their fathers roam the nearby woods, looking for firewood. I introduce myself as a forestry technician and mention that a dying white fir is leaning over one of their tents. Dropping my […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Pilgrim at Shit Creek
A mother comes to terms with her son’s childhood in the urban environment.
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Are you strong? Remembering Randy Udall
I think we will find a solution to climate change, but we will need each other to make it happen. Over the years, the environmental community has become fractured on the issue — arguing over the best approach, becoming frustrated and critical. And all this is healthy, but only if seen as part of a […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Becoming pronghorn: an essay
Remembering wildlife biologist James Yoakum
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
Oval Intention: an essay
In the buttery early morning light at Tuolumne Meadows, my 8-year-old son and I contemplate a heap of fabric and jumbled poles. We’d woken early to claim a good campsite, but only now do I recall the difficulty of assembling my father’s ancient tent. He and my daughter are still sleeping, miles away. The instructions […]
Posted inMay 27, 2013: Haywired
War Bird: An essay on robot hummingbirds
Probably he was bigAs mosses, and little lizards, they say were once big.Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.— D.H. Lawrence, “Humming Bird” The other day, a friend of mine sent along a story he thought I’d enjoy. It described how some engineers had developed a robot they called the Nano-Hummingbird. Barely 3 inches long […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Sycamore Canyon: an essay
These rocks are warm to the touch under noonday sun. I strip my socks off sweaty feet and stand in unlaced boots in the shade of a juniper. Angie perches with her left foot wedged toe-first into a crevice above me, her right leg hanging free. She snaps a quickdraw onto a hanger bolted into […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Seeking Ben Kennedy: a quest to find a mysterious Montana philanthropist
Ben Kennedy didn’t talk a lot. He was never a family man. He liked having a beer or a cup of tea with his soup and seldom got around to bathing. He died essentially alone, a man without means and with few close friends. He was born in 1922 in rural Belt, Mont., about 100 […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
River home: an essay on life on the Arkansas River
Dad didn’t like it when I moved here. Nine years before, I’d left Texas. Now here I was, leaving Colorado Springs for a town with 1 percent of its population and, Dad believed, 1 percent of its opportunities, if that. There are three of us kids, and I’m the nearest to his heart — and […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Kids in the backcountry: The earlier, the better
Note: This essay is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. The three of them race out in front of us — dots of colorful energy bushwhacking across the tundra, elevation over 10,000 feet, deep in the northern Wyoming’s Washakie Wilderness. Ruby, 11, Sawyer, 13, and Eli, 14. They […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Westerners love erotic landscapes
Note: This essay is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. On this October morning in southern Idaho, the air is dry and frosty, and the shifting sand dunes reflected in the lake at Bruneau are soft and curvy –– feminine shapes. The woman I love becomes one with […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2013: Uncertain Landing
‘We Don’t Give a Damn How They Do It Outside’
An Alaska native struggles to “blend in” in the Lower 48.
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Reimaginations
After we buried my grandfather behind the Falls Church and hauled the dress bags out of the attic and stacked his books into traveling trunks, my aunt, in the final throes of our archeological dig, found a sketchbook that had belonged to my great-grandfather, Donn P. Crane. The cover was marbled and brown, held together […]