It is quiet here at midweek, the silence of Owens Valley in California broken occasionally by the croak of ravens and the throb of a car or truck passing on Highway 395. Infrequently, one of those vehicles slows and follows the dirt driveway leading into this place of sorrow and remembrance. There is little here […]
John Krist
Posted inWotr
The West loses an unsentimental guide
Historian David Lavender was the best sort of guide a traveler in the West could have: A quiet man with a wry sense of humor, he was passionate about this region, refused to romanticize it and was happy to share his knowledge if asked. He was never sentimental about the West, writing about cowboys: “Although […]
Posted inWotr
He taught us to see — but not the whole picture
One of the most celebrated photographers in American history began his career by snapping the kind of family vacation pictures that betray no hint of visual genius. This should hearten any teenager whose early accomplishments with pen, camera, guitar or paintbrush seem inadequate to support dreams of artistic triumph. Ansel Adams was 14 when he […]
Posted inWotr
Reporters need to play a better numbers game
For nearly a decade, proposals to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have been at the heart of a political debate that touches on a wide range of potent issues: the moral and military implications of America’s dependence on foreign energy supplies, the proper balance between stewardship and exploitation of natural resources, […]
Posted inWotr
Surprise: Conservation counted in the last election
To many people who care about the West’s publicly owned lands, the Nov. 5 election results fell somewhere between disastrous and catastrophic. Voters handed control of the Senate back to the Republican Party and enlarged its majority in the House of Representatives, thereby sweeping away the fragile congressional roadblock that had hampered Bush administration efforts […]
Posted inWotr
Guess what’s the most dangerous government job
Think of all the dangerous beats assigned to federal law enforcement officers: tracking illegal arms sales, intercepting drug smugglers, guarding the nation’s borders against foreign terrorists, apprehending kidnappers and fugitives, protecting the lives of potential assassination targets. Now, guess which branch of federal law enforcement is the most dangerous, in terms of the rate at […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Dam busters win symbolic victory
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. AUBURN, Calif. – Tom Aiken guides his old pickup along a crumbling road, past a steel gate, past a weathered shed filled with drilling cores, past heaps of gravel. Stopping at a pullout, he parks and leads the way to the canyon’s lip. The […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
In California, no water project is too big
In a state like California, where half the population relies on water that has been pumped hundreds of miles across deserts or thousands of feet over mountains, you might think it difficult to devise a plan nutty enough to draw jeers. Yet an Alaska company has managed to do just that. At first blush, I […]