Heard Around the West

In North Dakota, when they say extension agents have contacts in high places, they aren’t talking about the halls of North Dakota State University. They’re talking about heaven. Flood-prone Devils Lake, N.D., has inundated thousands of acres in recent years. When an uncharacteristically warm spell caused an anxiety outbreak among local residents last month, extension […]

Being a senator is a rough job. It takes a good deal of toughing it out, sucking it up, upper-lip stiffening and other-cheek turning. Take Mark Hatfield, the Republican senator from Oregon who recently lobbied to extend the “logging-without-laws” salvage rider: “Seeing the photos (of fallen ancient forest trees) chills my blood,” he said on […]

First, a quiz: The West is a land of wide spaces, deep forests and infinite skies. It’s an easy place to lose track of (a) your way; (b) your mail; (c) billions of dollars in Indian trust funds; (d) 24 million acres of public land; (e) salmon; (f) your career prospects; or (g) all of […]

Greg Leichner of Placitas, N.M., spent 20 years trying to take himself seriously as an artist – a pursuit that bought him so much mental anguish he finally cracked and traded it in for two new aspirations: Starting a newsletter called Citizens For A Poodle-Free Montana and running for president of the United States. He […]

Television has brought its own set of icons into our world: O.J. as hero, O.J. as anti-hero; the Super Bowl as football game, the Super Bowl as cultural landmark. And for the first time this year, the Super Bowl as intergenerational Navajo entertainment. Ernie Manuelito of KTNN, the tribe’s 50,000-watt radio station, provided a play-by-play […]

A man living near Red Lodge, Mont., not that far from Yellowstone National Park, was heading home with a “Road Kill” hot pizza loaded with plenty of extra meat and cheese when he saw what looked like a wolf. So he did what anyone would do: stopped and fed the animal a few slices of […]

Movies about Nevada’s casino life always seem to revolve around gangsters, call girls and stool pigeons. In a shocking reversal of that trend, pigeon stools brought down the marquee of the Golden Spike Casino in Carson City this month. “We are concerned about it,” casino co-owner Jim Bawden told the Reno Gazette-Journal in an article […]

Small towns once complained that children were their biggest export. “You can’t keep them home once they’ve seen bright lights,” residents would lament as their towns shrank. People in small towns still complain – it’s their nature. But today they complain because not only their kids, but everyone else’s kids, are moving to their dimly […]

America’s national parks – its crown jewels – now include a lot of costume jewelry, says a Nov. 20 Forbes magazine article on the National Park Service. The system is so bloated with second-rate parks here, there and everywhere, there is little money to maintain such real treasures as Yosemite, Glacier or Grand Canyon. Writer […]

Rep. James V. Hansen of Utah spent 24 happy years – he didn’t know how happy – in the U.S. Congress as a minority member. Then, a year ago, Republicans won the House, and Hansen became chairman of a subcommittee. With the appearance of power came trouble. His bill to sell Forest Service mountainsides to […]

When you buy Nikes, you get more than shoes. You become part of the wise-use movement, or perhaps of your local militia, judging by a Nike ad printed in the November Outside and elsewhere. The ad leads with: “Boundaries are set by dictators. Created to regulate cattle grazing and employ tollbooth attendants. With no regard […]

Jim Peacock, president of the Utah Petroleum Association, was apparently kidnapped on his way to a meeting with state officials in September. An impostor was sent on in his place. It is the only way to explain why the head of Utah’s free-market petroleum industry, in free-market Utah, would be asking the state for welfare […]

Paul Rauber of the Sierra Club wrote to say “I am a great fan of “Heard Around the West.” There is, however, something that drives me crazy about it: your habit of putting random phrases into boldface… Otherwise, I love you dearly.” We hear you, Paul. — Patricia A. McColm of California’s Bay Area likes […]

Like many Americans, Evelyn and Don Irvine enjoy camping out on public land. Evening after evening after evening, they sit by their small trailer on the banks of the Green River in Utah, watching the water and rafters flow by. Thus far, they’ve been camped on the Green for 20 years, ever since a doctor […]

The National Park Service’s Park-‘N’-Drive Competition is getting intense: One tourist pulled a knife on another last fall in a fight over a Grand Canyon parking space. Already this season amid the canyon’s gridlock, a woman who boldly stood in a parking space – trying to save it for her husband and their car – […]

The Missoulian, a Montana daily, ran an intriguing Help Wanted: “Sheepherder with miniumum of 30 days’ experience. Attends sheep grazing on open range, herds sheep using trained dogs. Guards flocks from predators and from eating poisonous plants … Food, housing, tools, supplies and equipment provided. Hours variable, on call 24 hours, 7 days … One […]

The Oregon Natural Resources Council has recruited 40 or so “cow cops” to observe public land grazing, and some ranchers are not pleased. In a letter to federal agencies, the Grant County Stockgrowers’ Association said it “will regard so-called inspection of our allotments as an act of trespass’ and call in real cops to arrest […]