A review of ‘American Copper’ by Shann Ray.
People & Places
Where agriculture and aesthetics go hand-in-glove
Former Seattleite and author Bryce Andrews writes and ranches in Montana.
Writing beyond the reservation stereotype
A Native author creates characters who are making a life in the urban West.
A displaced California tribe reclaims sacred land
The Mountain Maidu return to their valley, but the work of reclamation never ends.
A visual artist finds her literary voice in New Mexico
Bev Magennis once covered houses in colorful tiles. Now she writes novels about murder in the rural West.
Claustrophilia: Do wide-open lands bring us closer together?
A writer finds that Colorado small-town life and Mongolian mishaps strengthen her human connections.
In the barren Central Valley, a woman unravels
A review of ‘Into the Valley’ by Ruth Galm.
Mitchell S. Jackson finds another Portland
An author speaks on growing up black in 1990s Portland and countering his city’s hipster image.
Overlooked author Lucia Berlin gets brought back to the light
‘A Manual for Cleaning Women,’ her posthumous book of stories, reveals a formidable talent.
Bringing a long-lost artifact back to the Hopi
Iconic Western author Katie Lee journeys with a tribe’s spiritual talisman.
Inside the transient world of mushroom pickers
People spend months scouring forest floors for money-making fungi in the Pacific Northwest.
Hunting the Arctic’s disappearing treasures
Ancient artifacts in the thawing North vanish before archaeologists can document them.
The lonesome, crowded West
Review of ‘The Water Museum’ by Luis Alberto Urrea.
An interview with the first African-American president of the Sierra Club
Aaron Mair hopes to shift the club’s mission toward policies that better include the needs and values of minorities.
Many still living in FEMA’s toxic trailers, investigation finds
From oil fields to reservations, post-Katrina trailers have spread far and wide.
Montana farmers start talking climate change
The Montana Farmers Union is fighting political polarization with pragmatic discussions about how to adapt and what to expect.
Dispatch from a medic on the North Star Fire in Washington
What base camp and wildfire look like from one firefighter’s perspective.
Wild Science: Migratory birds on the Great Salt Lake
Scientists explore how phalaropes respond to less water and increased salinity.
Dreaming where I walk
An Indian writer becomes an American citizen — and finds herself.
Fatal shooting in Wyoming raises questions about racism
Were two tribal members the victims of a hate crime?
