Reclamation, removal, and recovery
The mirage of pristine wilderness
One summer day, I went with my father and daughter to Schmitz Park in West Seattle, famous for being among the only chunks of old-growth forest within city limits. A few urban noises penetrated the 50-acre park, mostly airplanes and boat horns. But it was markedly quiet — and beautiful. The turf was springy with…
A part of something old: writer Kim Stafford’s storied places
In southwest Portland lies a strip of untamed land, bounded by busy roads in a dense, urban landscape. It is not a park, simply a tract of woods that developers missed. It is also not pristine nature, but it is what writer and Portland native Kim Stafford calls a “scattered Eden.” Those woods are just…
Cody Cortez: A faux-file of the West’s most mysterious writer
As fiercely reclusive as he is enigmatic, Cody Cortez is probably the most compelling Western writer you’ve never heard of. He lives off the grid and loathes the trappings of the literary life, spurning bookstore readings and appearances on National Public Radio. Among devotees, though, the pages of his books-in-progress, especially his memoir-in-the-making, Cowboy Rinpoche,…
Seeds of atonement: an interview with writer Shann Ray
The short stories in Shann Ray’s first book, American Masculine, reflect his lifelong interest in forgiveness and redemption, as well as in basketball and the American West. Ray’s characters struggle to live up to their families’ expectations and look up to those who are “more ready to give and forgive.” Ray, who grew up in…
Remediating a Superfund sacrifice zone on Montana’s Clark Fork river
I spent last summer and fall floating down the country’s largest Superfund site in a canoe. I was living in a borrowed cabin near Georgetown Lake, about 20 miles from the headwaters of Montana’s Clark Fork River. I wanted a closer look at a disaster before it was undone. Speak the words “Montana river,” and…
Don’t tell her she can’t: a profile of author Mary Clearman Blew
Author and professor Mary Clearman Blew grew up on cattle ranches outside Lewistown, Mont., in the ’40s and ’50s, the great grand-daughter of homesteaders. She’s written about her family’s legacy and the changing West in nonfiction (All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family), short stories (Runaway), and a novel, Jackalope Dreams, about ranchers…
Skipped issue, HCN: the German edition, visitors and a remembrance
After a busy summer, the HCN staff is taking a two-week breather, one of four publishing breaks we take each year. Look for your next issue around Oct. 17. How do you say cougar in German? HCN associate editor Sarah Gilman‘s Writers on the Range essay, “Ordinary Wild,” about a cougar that wandered into downtown…
Stories like a bale unrolling: a review of Conjugations of the Verb To Be
Conjugations of the Verb To BeGlen Chamberlain193 pages, softcover: $11.95.Delphinium Press, September. The fictional ranching town of Buckle in eastern Montana is the setting for Bozeman writer Glen Chamberlain’s short-story collection Conjugations of the Verb To Be. The stories, though independent, are skillfully intertwined; the lives of the characters overlap and intermingle in the many…
Survival and opportunism in Butte: A review of The Richest Hill on Earth
The Richest Hill on EarthRichard S. Wheeler320 pages, hardcover: $29.99.Forge, December. In the run-up to an election year, what can the past reveal about public figures and the role they play in shaping business policies? Montana author Richard S. Wheeler’s historical novel The Richest Hill on Earth dramatizes the rivalry between the 19th century “Copper…
Tales of sagebrush and murder: A review of Assumption
AssumptionPercival Everett272 pages, softcover: $15.Graywolf Press, October. There aren’t nearly enough books set in New Mexico. With its cinematic lighting and uniquely off-kilter characters, the state should grow great novels as plentifully as chiles. Strangely, though, it hasn’t. California author Percival Everett sets out to change that with Assumption, a trilogy of mysteries starring Ogden…
Big growth, big problems
In your snapshot, “Down and out in the West,” you observed that Nevada leads the county in unemployment “for the 14th straight month, due to its almost complete reliance on the still-pretty-dilapidated housing, gaming and tourism industries” (HCN, 8/22/2011). Similarly, you wrote, “California is still reeling from the housing implosion,” but Wyoming and North Dakota…
‘The most sacred form of welfare’
Nevada has two large bodies of natural water within its borders: Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake (HCN, 8/8/11). The state of Nevada has made the choice to sacrifice Walker Lake by over-allocating the upstream water rights to a few upstream communities. As your article stated, irrigation brought glorious benefits, from onions to potatoes, alfalfa and…
The turn of the wheel: the many lives of writer H. Lee Barnes
“A lot of the themes that I work with are within the context of the lives I have lived,” says Nevada author H. Lee Barnes. “My characters are grassroots people who struggle to make it to the next day.” An Army brat who grew up “all over the Southwest,” Barnes was a Green Beret in…
Mary Clearman Blew reads from her book, This is Not the Ivy League
The author reads part of the prologue to This is Not the Ivy League.
Where’s the good news?
While I was interested in the article, “Looking for Balance in Navajoland,” and am well aware that controversy and upset sell better than routine good performance, I wonder if you could manage at least a couple of stories on some of the success stories in Indian Country (HCN, 8/22/11). There must be many, but one…
Fall books for the sweetly socked-in
The changes seem to happen overnight: Even under the stifling lid of late-summer days, September’s dusk begins to come on cool, its mornings curling at the edges with damp chill like the pages of a book. Along the ditches and river, the cottonwood leaves are first to drop, scattering the ground with gold. Tea becomes…
“Flow trails” for mountain biking
The following comments were posted in response to Kimberly Hirai’s blog, “Illegal trailblazing as a negotiation tool?” “Flow trails” for mountain biking don’t necessarily cost more to build than hiking trails. But sustainable trails for any user group do cost more than trails cut randomly through the woods. One reason is land managers often bring…
Hope and redemption
Seven years ago, Daniel McCool, a political science professor and director of the American West Center at the University of Utah, wrote an eloquent essay for this magazine, in which he said, “A dam slated for the wrecking ball is a kinetic form of politics — falling concrete that embodies the energy of a whole…
Living close to the bone in modern Alaska: A review of Bear Down, Bear North
Bear Down, Bear North Melinda Moustakis144 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of Georgia Press, September. Bear Down, Bear North plunges its reader deep into tangled relations and beautiful places. This small craft of 13 linked stories holds everything necessary to survive the frigid Alaskan waters. Washington writer Melinda Moustakis works words attentively and playfully, slipping like a…
No bones about it: two books on the disappearing Everett Ruess
Finding Everett Ruess: The Life and Unsolved Disappearance of a Legendary Wilderness ExplorerDavid Roberts416 pages, hardcover: $25.Broadway, 2011. Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing AfterlifePhilip L. Fradkin296 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of California Press, 2011. There’s nothing like an unsolved disappearance to create an enduring cult hero. Maybe that’s why Amelia Earhart and…
Rebuilding a river as Washington’s Elwha dams come down
In his autobiography, Conquering the Last Frontier, Olympic Peninsula pioneer Thomas Aldwell described his first encounter with the land that would be his legacy: “Below the cabin was a canyon through which the Elwha River thundered, and 75 feet or so in front of it was a spring of crystal clear water, overhung by vine…