San Luis Valley irrigators search for new ways to live within the limits of their water-short world. Also, the Sierra Club opts for civil disobedience against Keystone XL, tribes tangle over how to disperse settlement money, the BLM takes a stand over a southwestern river, and more.
Reimaginations
After we buried my grandfather behind the Falls Church and hauled the dress bags out of the attic and stacked his books into traveling trunks, my aunt, in the final throes of our archeological dig, found a sketchbook that had belonged to my great-grandfather, Donn P. Crane. The cover was marbled and brown, held together…
Economy, distrust complicate allocation of tribal settlement money
When the Obama administration announced in April that it would pay 41 tribes some $1 billion to settle a lawsuit over federal mismanagement of trust funds, many saw it as a sort of stimulus package for Indian Country — a chance to invest in long-term development and infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and roads. “The…
Farmers agree to tax those who deplete groundwater
Amid drought and climate change in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, farmers vote for a new approach to rein in their overpumping of groundwater.
My Dakota: A photo essay and conversation
We recommend you select the gallery option to view these images. In 2005, photographer Rebecca Norris Webb decided it was time to head West with her camera. She’d lived in New York City for 15 years, and spent six years working in the cramped interiors of zoos and aquariums for The Glass Between Us, her…
The BLM fights for the Southwest’s last free-flowing river
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA “For sale: Prime Office/Retail,” proclaims the sign on a mesquite flat on the outskirts of this affluent city of 47,000 people, about an hour south of Tucson near the Huachuca Mountains. It’s announcing a 2,000-acre project known as Tribute, proposed by California developer Castle and Cooke and approved by city leaders six…
A Montanan walks into a Cairo bar: A review of Evel Knievel Days
Evel Knievel DaysPauls Toutonghi293 pages,hardcover: $24.Crown, 2012. Khosi Saqr Clark, the narrator of Pauls Toutonghi’s funny and winsome second novel, Evel Knievel Days, isn’t a typical native of Butte. Sure, he loves Montana and enjoys the annual Evel Knievel Days spectacle, complete with its “American Motordome Wall of Death,” but his neurotic nature (“the obsessive-compulsive’s…
Book review: Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940
Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940. Sandi Fox 208 pages, softcover: $40. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Quilts are cherished both for their warmth and for the memories they hold, so it makes sense that they were among the sparse belongings early immigrants brought with them by horse, wagon, ship or train to California. In…
China v. Utah: Whose air is worse?
Quiz: Utah’s Wasatch Front or Beijing? 1. Which area had the worst air quality in its respective nation during January 2013? 2. Which place prepared for hosting the Olympic games by expanding the public transit network? 3. Which region has real-time air quality data, frequently updated on Twitter? For answers, see the bottom of this page.…
Drought forces a new era of agricultural water conservation
This winter, our usually quiet Colorado valley — so quiet that you can hear the wingbeats of the eagles and ravens that pass overhead — has reverberated with the growls of trackhoes digging trenches across hillsides and irrigated pastures. The activity has nothing to do with oil and gas development, though a proposed sale of…
Education in the great outdoors
The following comments were posted at hcn.org in response to the Jan. 21 “Learning by Living” special issue. What will sustain the Outward Bound school is real adventure that the students spearhead (HCN, 1/21/13, “Outward (re)Bound“). Not peaks or rivers the instructors want to climb or paddle, but objectives that the students embark upon, fueled…
No more ‘social studies’
I am a Colorado rancher. I subscribe to HCN for the responsible research and reporting its contributors provide on environmental issues affecting the West. (The Dec. 24 feature on energy development in British Columbia is a perfect recent example.) While there is a decidedly liberal view evident in much of what HCN produces, I support…
Our loyal readers come through, yet again
The staff had great news to pass on to the High Country News board of directors during our winter board meeting (held in cyberspace) Jan. 25th: Over the holidays, you all sent in a record number of gift subscriptions and Research Fund donations, along with several substantial grants supporting HCN’s editorial work and the upgrade of…
Reading the Brautigan Bible: A review of Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard BrautiganWilliam Hjortsberg896 pages,hardcover: $38.Counterpoint Press, 2012. Richard Brautigan grew up in Oregon, convinced he’d be an influential writer. He rose to fame in San Francisco and later split his time between Bolinas, Calif., Livingston, Mont. and Japan. He published 10 poetry books and a dozen novels, including…
Sierra Club fights Keystone XL with civil disobedience
In 2004, Carl Pope, then-director of the Sierra Club, tangled publicly with Capt. Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Pope was steering the club towards cooperative solutions to environmental problems, collaborating with large corporations instead of fighting them. Watson, an advocate of direct action whose group blocked environmental despoilers with living bodies…