So there’s this enduring stereotype about English teachers. We like cats. In my experience, it’s mostly true – among my colleagues (the nice ones anyway), a reliable conversation topic is always the latest amusing cat story/photo. There are other stereotypes also: yes, we do Tweet in complete sentences. But for the purposes of this post, […]
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Little grousing on the prairie
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I’m embarrassed to say that, in the decade I’ve lived on the Colorado Front Range, I’d never been to the Pawnee National Grasslands; that is, until last week. With mountains in my rear-view, I drove east from Fort Collins. Before long, I crossed the border into Weld County (called […]
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Rants from the Hill: The silence of desert greetings
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert.Rants from the Hill is now a podcast too! Listen to an audio performance of this essay, here. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or through Feedburner for use in another podcast reader. […]
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How now, Browns Canyon
U.S. Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat, got two differing views about Browns Canyon when he met with constituents and hiked in the area during the congressional Easter recess. The meetings were in Chaffee County in central Colorado. The Arkansas River flows through Browns Canyon, which sits between Salida and Buena Vista. It may well […]
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Lessons from the Old West: Don’t ban it, brand it
By P.J. Hill Last Saturday was roundup and branding day at my ranch in the Madison River Valley, about 20 miles west of Bozeman, Montana. Neighbors came to help and I put the P J (my registered brand) on the left side of my calves. As I carefully placed the irons on each calf (yes, […]
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Earth Day — Gone Fishin’
Earth Day was once again full of stark warnings about global doom and scolds over my level of recycling and my carbon footprint. So I went fishing. In particular, I took my 8-year-old to an old gravel pit that has been landscaped into a pond and stocked with rainbow trout straight from the hatchery. One […]
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Sagebrush rebellion rides again
I don’t relish this role, you know. If you happened to have read some of my other posts you may have noticed a certain pattern. Sure, there’s the occasional outlier column that addresses toilets, or aspen trees, or what have you, but on a pretty regular basis I’m the lady who sheepishly discusses all the […]
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Lighten up, take a load off
All this serious, recent talk (also see this) about Western water shortages and new pipelines gets me thinking again about a not-so-serious but related subject: poop. Granted, there are many very serious aspects of poop such as its disease-carrying properties. You may be aware that some of these benefits are old news to Joseph Jenkins, […]
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A toxic cocktail runs through it
The Yakama Nation calls for additional remediation of the Willamette River.
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Calling all citizen scientists
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When I was a kid, my three sisters and I were compelled to go on what we called “forced marches” all over the country, from Death Valley (which we dubbed near-to-Death Valley) to Cape Cod National Seashore, where the August sand was so hot that our Jellies—you remember, […]
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Let’s Put a Bounty on Stupid
What is more stupid than bailing the ocean? Paying someone to bail the ocean. Yet it seems the Utah Legislature thinks that’s a good idea. Worse yet, Utah lawmakers are co-opting the state’s sportsmen to pay for this folly. If you are a sportsman anywhere between Alaska and Arizona, watch your wallet. This trend ain’t […]
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Lessons From the Musselshell: small steps toward recovery
Editor’s note: This is the fifth blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. While the Musselshell River’s rampaging waters were still receding and ranchers were just beginning to assess the extent of the damage thus revealed, Musselshell Watershed Coalition (MWC) members met to address immediate needs […]
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Rants from the Hill: The leprechaun trap
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Rants from the Hill is now a podcast too! Check out our first episode, an audio performance of this essay, here. Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or through Feedburner for use in another podcast […]
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Should a Washington utility prop up a polluting Montana power plant?
By Jennifer Langston, Sightline.org Attention Puget Sound Energy customers: Don’t feel bad if you missed the connection between your electricity bills and today’s headlines about reducing air pollution in scenic Montana. It’s not obvious. But news that the federal government wants owners of the Colstrip coal plant to invest in expensive new equipment to reduce […]
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Being “green” doesn’t make you a radical
I’m far from the first to notice the increasing popularity of the phrase “radical environmentalist” and its close cousin “environmental extremist” in political discourse lately, but I’m getting darn sick of it. Rick Santorum’s “phony theology” dust-up in February was a prominent national example; as I’m sure you remember, he accused President Obama of adhering to […]
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A monumental proposal
Things have sure changed around here. When I moved to Salida in 1978 to work for the local newspaper, I covered many hearings about roadless areas and their suitability as wilderness. And invariably, the local business community was opposed to “another federal land grab” that would “lock up valuable resources” and “deprive us of a […]
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Rethinking recreation in grizzly country
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House In far north-central Glacier National Park (GNP), on the U.S.-Canadian border, is a spot called Goat Haunt. It’s a remote area on the U.S. side, accessed by most people via a ferry across Upper Waterton Lake from Canada. Several years ago I was walking from there toward the […]
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New Keystone XL route could still threaten Ogallala aquifer
By Lisa Song, InsideClimate News “A relatively modest jog around the Sandhills”—that’s how one TransCanada executive describes the Keystone XL oil pipeline’s new route through Nebraska, which is expected to be released in the next few weeks. But while the path will avoid the Nebraska Sandhills—a region of grass-covered sand dunes that overlies the critically important […]
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Wildlife on working lands get a leg up
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Rural landowners in the West, and in several states back East, just got a big incentive to protect seven vulnerable species on their property. Working Lands for Wildlife, a new partnership between the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was announced last week. The money […]
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Expedition Denali, exploring why diversity matters
For the first time a team of African-American climbers is assembling to make a bid for the summit of the tallest peak in North America, Denali. Led by the National Outdoor Leadership School in 2013, this expedition aims to encourage minority youth to enjoy outdoor recreation as part of an active lifestyle as well as […]