We should be a little grateful this time around. The West’s last energy boom threatened the region with mountains of spent oil shale, huge pits from which the rock had been taken, air pollution from coal gasification plants, and large ditches carrying Columbia River water into the Colorado River Basin. This latest energy boom is […]
Writers on the Range
Posted inAugust 28, 2000: The mine that turned the Red River blue
Fires burn through boundaries at Mesa Verde
The flames have illuminated – and possibly strengthened – the park’s intimate connections with its neighbors
Posted inAugust 28, 2000: The mine that turned the Red River blue
Squishy-soft processes – hard results
In Nye, Mont., and in Paonia, Colo., two difficult disputes were recently resolved by people sitting together at a table. In Montana, the fight was about hardrock mining and 1,000 jobs. In Colorado, it was about coal mining and several hundred jobs. Each dispute involved tens of millions of dollars in investment capital, public land […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Yes, we need the rural West
Note: this article accompanies another article in this issue, “Do we really need the rural West?“ Hal Rothman is normally a very cool guy – a history professor fascinated by the culture and economy of his hometown of Las Vegas. But he recently went to a conference about the rural Northern Rockies, and after sitting […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Sly Country News
Weird Friends An empire is born On the eve of its 30th birthday, Sly Country News leapt headlong into the world of media empires. In a special April 1 meeting, SCN’s board of directors voted to privatize the operation. The paper’s stock hit the market at $5 a share and immediately jumped to $500. “We’ve […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Marc Racicot: One of the would-be president’s men
You never know who you’re going to meet on an airplane. Last summer, on a flight to Helena, Mont., as the seats in coach class began to fill, a handsome, middle-aged man walked up the aisle and slipped into the seat next to me. He appeared exhausted. His name was Marc Racicot, and he was […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
In Wyoming, academic freedom is an endangered species
Mention the term academic freedom, and some people picture professors sitting in ivory towers, writing arcane articles and books for each other. They’re wrong. Academic research and higher education may be specialized, but they are not arcane or irrelevant. Ask the students who flock to this nation’s major universities, or visit the industries that have […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
The West ‘ain’t no cow country’
Whatever might be said of the arid West, it “ain’t no cow country.” That’s what Henry Fonda, playing Wyatt Earp, said of Arizona in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946). That’s also the bottom line of a book I wrote, The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. In it, […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Arizona gets a new monument
ST. GEORGE, Utah – President Clinton stood on the chilly, wind-whipped South Rim of the Grand Canyon in mid-January and announced the creation of the million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in northwest Arizona. The next day, southwest Utah’s daily newspaper duly reported the announcement, but it shared front-page space with another story – one that […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
How the Indians were set up to fail at bison management
I wasn’t born soon enough to be a cowboy on the West’s old open range. But for the last 10 years, I’ve been lucky enough to help gather a herd of up to 500 bison every fall on 30 square miles of Montana prairie. I live on the reservation, though I’m not a Native American, […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Keeping ’em down on the High Plains
It’s a largely Old West fantasy that if Wyoming just had more access to federal lands, fewer environmental regulations and minimal taxation for industry, the state would thrive. Right now it isn’t. Wyoming has missed out on the boom (HCN, 7/7/97). While most state coffers bulge, Wyoming expects a $183 million revenue shortfall for the […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Battered borderlands
The Border Patrol seeks a conservation ethic
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
The Red Desert: Wyoming’s endangered country
RED DESERT, Wyo. – Fossils of tree limbs were all around, most the size of my fingers, a few the size of horse troughs. Prehistoric bits of turtle shell, horse bones and arrowhead chippings also lay scattered, testimony to the diverse inhabitants who once frequented this ocean-turned-desert. I suddenly looked up. Our group had flushed […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
The river comes last
Deep in the Wyoming wilderness and high above tree line, glacial cirques collect and funnel pure alpine waters from Cloud Peak’s 13,000-foot summit down to the muddy torrent of the Bighorn River. Draining north into Montana, the river transects the Crow Indian reservation, where it is joined by the Little Bighorn, famous as the site […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Tom Chapman: A small-town boy who made good
PAONIA, Colo. – Many Westerners see Tom Chapman as a scourge who extracts millions from taxpayers by threatening to develop private land within national parks and wilderness areas. To me, he is just a local Paonia boy who made good. Starting in the 1980s with nothing more than a real estate broker’s license, an ability […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
‘Petroglyph police’ try to save the art of the ancients
ZION NATIONAL PARK, Utah – A prehistoric petroglyph, chipped out of red sandstone to resemble a fat sheep, contends with a crude contemporary scrawl about a foot away. The scrawl looks roughly like a circle, scratched out with a sharp stick – the mark of an unsupervised child, or a thoughtless adult. When Sharon and […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
High Country Schmooze
Yet another new intern Sporting a black beret and a cheery attitude, the paper’s newest intern blew into the High Country Schmooze office last week, fresh from a blizzard of subpoenas and a lively book tour. “All I want to do is buckle down and work real hard,” Moniker Looinsky said, smiling and winking at […]
Posted inDecember 21, 1998: Grand Canyon Gridlock
Fallen forester
Did whistleblowers destroy a fine public servant?
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Utah builds a dream trail
Late one afternoon, a trim, bearded University of Utah administrator climbs from a car in a foothill cul-de-sac 10 minutes from the busiest intersection in Salt Lake City. Rick Reese brims with energy as he strides off down a mountain path toward a perch with an astonishing view of the Salt Lake Valley. He stands […]
Posted inNovember 23, 1998: A patchwork peace unravels
Amateur essayists walk a changing forest
HART’S COVE, Ore. – In the Siuslaw National Forest, the contrast in viewpoints among those on the trail is as stark as night and day. “They’re amazing,” says Mary Collins, shaking her head in wonder as she stares through the rain at the gray-barked, old-growth trees that rise like pillars. Sitka spruce trees – some […]