Heard Around the West

If you’re dying to see 70,000 nonpoisonous snakes, then a town of 20 people in Manitoba province, Canada, is the place for you to go. Narcisse, though tiny, boasts four limestone pits that shelter the gray and black snakes from minus-40-degree winter weather. In spring, the snakes wake up, and that’s when University of Oregon […]

Are San Francisco residents rude to tourists? Of course! But just to make it official, the San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter out with crutches. The hobbling reporter then stood in a crowded bus or train waiting to see if someone would give him a seat. The common response? “I got mine.” One of the […]

Could a man juggle 20 drinks sliding around a tray while walking in spike heels and looking sexy? Some cocktail waitresses in Reno, Nev., do that for eight hours at a time. They also say they’re sick and tired of it – the blisters, bunions and hammer toes caused by wearing high heels on the […]

In the West, people sometimes find bears scrounging for food in the kitchen or cougars pacing the deck. In the East, a chubby house cat can spook the neighbors. Residents of Bensalem, Penn., became alarmed when they saw what they thought was a 50-pound wildcat or worse, a “mysterious monster,” reports The Denver Post. Seven […]

Fast asleep at 5 a.m., while illegally camped in a parking lot in Yellowstone< National Park, two tourists from Oregon were rudely awakened " -- not by park rangers tapping on their window, but by a boom so loud they thought it was an earthquake. In a matter of minutes the couple was racing off, […]

A knitting society in Sequim, Wash., is making little wool sweaters to outfit little penguins who were drenched by a tanker’s oil spill in Australia. The one-foot-tall fairy penguins need the sweaters both for warmth and for protection. When the penguins preen their bodies the oil poisons them. “They look so cute,” said a member […]

“Quirky” is how the American Journalism Review describes the mottos of many newspapers, and in the West, one of the longer missions is stated by Washington’s Wenatchee World: “Published in the apple capital of the world and the buckle of the power belt of the great Northwest.” An in-your-face message comes from the Aspen Daily […]

Snowmobilers may be another breed. “I tolerate cold real well,” Dr. Bruce Hayse told the Jackson Hole News. Riding around on frozen Jackson Lake, Hayse says he suddenly felt the ice give way; in less than a minute, he found himself swimming. As he looked up at the Tetons from his hole in the ice, […]

Old West shoot-outs? Gun battles these days have lost a lot of their family fun. In fact, people firing bullets at each other can be downright terrifying. As moviegoers were leaving a Las Vegas theater last July, many reacted with horror to a volley of gunshots out on the street. What they didn’t know – […]

Holy flying s…! “Feces rained from the Utah skies again,” this time in Sevier Country, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. Two homes and two cars were splattered in February. This is Utah’s fourth poop-bombing, and police agree that a jetliner was the likely culprit. Last spring, three homeowners in the Utah towns of Riverton and […]

The U.S. Forest Service is thinking about changing the color of its 15,000 vehicles, now mint green. A new color would help create a more modern image, says an agency spokesperson, according to the Portland Oregonian. Some employees say they’d also welcome some anonymity on the job. Needling the federal agency, the Northwest Forestry Association […]

There’s something about “the big ditch” that’s got the U.S. Postal Service buffaloed. Last year, the federal agency honored Arizona’s Grand Canyon with a stamp that placed the giant gorge in the wrong state – Colorado. That led to the shredding of 100 million stamps. This year, a new 60-cent stamp reverses an image of […]

Cows as we know them seem to be on the way out in the West. The Arizona Republic reports that in the “once stolid cattle country” of southeastern Arizona, a hydroponic tomato greenhouse near Willcox, Ariz., employs more than 500 people, while ranchers now raise “all kinds of weirdness from ostriches to rabbits and chinchillas.” […]

In southeastern Washington, vandals wiped out an entire forest overnight. They did the deed by chopping down the only tree in an arid landscape of cheatgrass and sagebrush near the town of Connell, pop. 2,000. Townspeople have put up a $1,000 reward for the arrest of the saw-wielding bandit, reports Associated Press. The lone tree, […]

After the “battle in Seattle” over world trade simmered down, marketing opportunities began to boil: The streets seemed paved with gold, or at least souvenirs. Budding entrepreneurs scoured downtown and came up with rubber bullets, broken police billies and the occasional tear-gas canister; then they put the booty up for auction on the Internet. One […]

Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura isn’t a bit afraid of inconsistency. He bragged about visiting a Nevada brothel as a young man in his autobiography, I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed, yet a few decades later, his lawyer hints at legal action unless the brothel, the Moonlight BunnyRanch, stops using the governor’s name in its advertising. […]

After a Taiwanese pop star filmed a four-minute video in a Grandview, Wash., cherry orchard, the demand for cherries in Asia boomed, crows cherry promoter Eric Melton. Cherry growers paid $100,000 for the MTV-style video, but the value was “about $3 million,” reports Capital Press. The gain came through higher prices, so that while Asian […]

Homes on the range: photos by High Country News readers This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Heard around the West.

Have cows been getting a bad rap? Do their bovine exteriors hide graceful interiors? Peoa, Utah, resident Randy Barton did not know, but he hoped that dressing cows for the ballet would at least draw an audience and help raise money for the town’s two parks. “Clad in nothing but tutus,” the Cow Ballet drew […]