Letter to the editor

You are missing one of the pieces to solve the puzzle (“Healing wounds from the war on coal,” HCN, 3/4/19). I have always admired the Navajo Coal Plant as a great opportunity to generate electricity and provide jobs on tribal land. Currently, I am working with another of the tribes to develop a wind-generating facility that […]

Integrating this form (comics/graphic novel) into a journalistic outlet is brave; it opens up a lot, formally. By amplifying an Indigenous storyboard, HCN is strengthening its adaptive ability to meaningfully respond to the myriad challenges we face, further opening the possibility of a magazine that enacts the actual context of the West, whose past, present, and future […]

I’m concerned about HCN running a 10-page comic book as the cover story in the magazine (“Nizhóní Girls”). I have nothing against comic books. When I was a kid, I enjoyed the debut of Spider-Man in 1963. As a young man, I enjoyed the revolutionary underground comic books of the late 1960s and 1970s, such […]

I just received my Feb. 4 issue of HCN and was surprised to see that the “environmental bi-weekly for people who care about the West” had morphed into Rolling Stone. With Donald Trump in the White House dismantling environmental regulations, assaulting the Endangered Species Act, filling top spots with corporate polluters and environmental destroyers, attacking […]

HCN’s effort to delve into visual storytelling has been one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in the many years I’ve been reading my favorite magazine. You can’t please everyone. I hope to see this trend continue. Dave BastionGrand Junction, Colorado This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline […]

“Nizhóní Girls” was an important and moving piece. I still can’t read it without tearing up. Pauly DenetclawManuelito, New Mexico This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Moving story.

I appreciate Associate Editor Tristan Ahtone’s account of the Indigenous storytelling tradition, and I’m glad to hear of the success of these motivated and talented girls, but journalism this is not. HCN has such a wonderful history of hard-hitting investigative journalism, stories that involve research, face-to-face interviews, extensive travel and persistence when confronted with less than cooperative […]

Osiyo. We most respectfully have been spurred to subscribe for a year due to your perspective commentary by Kim TallBear. Wado. Sarah Mix and Susan StrubelCitizens of Cherokee Nation Ashland, Oregon This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Spurred to subscribe.

I am very much enjoying your focus on Native American issues, and I thought the “Nizhóní Girls” comic was marvelous (HCN, 2/4/19). But I was disappointed with Kim TallBear’s critique of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, “Playing Indian.” As a former elected official for the Green Party, I’m proud that San Miguel County, Colorado, adopted Indigenous Peoples Day […]

Thank you for your recent article on polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs (“A toxic past and present on the Spokane River,” HCN, 2/4/19). Here at the Spokane Riverkeeper, we are on the front lines of this issue. As your article demonstrates, stakeholders have been active in promulgating a narrative of collaborative cleanup efforts. But while these […]

I am usually excited to receive High Country News each month and read about the important issues across our beloved American West. I am therefore disappointed in your choice to include cartoons as a cover story (“Nizhóní Girls,” HCN, 2/4/19). I did not learn anything new or gain a greater appreciation for the Navajo culture. […]

A recent article documenting the decline in Western snowpacks is misleading (“The Latest,” HCN, 1/21/19). As one of the longtime collectors of snow data and its analysis as a snow survey supervisor, and having corresponded with the authors of the paper cited, I would like to add some perspective. The article documented the decline of […]

I was one of the founders of the organization that gradually morphed into Climate Solutions, but broke with them when they closed their Energy Outreach Center. Frankly, Climate Solutions was a significant part of the problem. The refusal of “big green” to support the revenue-neutral carbon tax in 2016 resulted in a large cadre of climate […]

I am Native, a homeowner and retiree. For me, Initiative 1631 (“What Killed Washington’s Carbon Tax?” HCN, 1/21/19) came down to a couple of points for voting no. Foremost: yet another tax. Taxpayers in Washington are weary from all the taxes. Every time a new idea crops up in government, the taxpayer is leaned on […]

“What Killed Washington’s Carbon Tax?” was excellent. However, it failed to discuss the main alternative to a “carbon tax,” which does, in fact, have bipartisan support on the federal level: a carbon fee and dividend proposal currently before the House and Senate. The real reason a carbon tax will always fail, as you point out, […]

I had to read “Welcome to the Alt-American West” (HCN, 12/24/18) a couple of times for it to really sink in. A better title would have been the “Alt-Right West,” because that is mostly where the altered reality lies. What Editor-in-Chief Brian Calvert describes jibes with what I saw in a video years ago by […]

In my 70 years in Wyoming, I have witnessed a steady decline in mule deer numbers (“The record-breaking journey of Deer 255,” HCN, 8/20/18). Fields that once hosted hundreds of deer now have dozens. The proliferation of “town deer” is not a healthy sign, either. These deer have lost their ability to migrate, so they […]