In this issue, High Country News checks out election results from across the Western U.S., with a special focus on issues involving climate, justice and power at both the local and national levels. Our feature story visits Evanston, Wyoming, where a grassroots movement called WyoSayNo fought to block private companies from building an immigrant detention center in the economically struggling town. In California’s Coachella Valley, we meet families who have been waiting for years to get clean and safe drinking water. We consider the lasting impacts of William Perry Pendley’s illegal stint as head of the Bureau of Land Management, noting how his efforts to undermine new backcountry conservation areas in Montana also undermined trust in land management. In Denver, we look at how legacy environmental organizations are working to move past their racist beginnings and rebuild relationships with neglected communities of color. We meet a group of Black cowboys, who are enthusiastically training for the annual Arizona Black Rodeo in Phoenix, and hear from environmental lawyer Dinah Bear about what the Trump administration’s changes to the National Environmental Protection Agency mean for the West. Finally, some of our favorite Western writers recommend good books for winter reading, and we experience how joy and sorrow come together in Olivia Durif’s reflection on the intimacy of natural burials at a quiet Washington preserve.
Invocation perseverance; prolific Griz 399; errant GPS
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Grow your own
Please keep an eye on writers of pieces such as “Sage advice” (October 2020). Etsy is not the only place for culturally appropriating consumers to get our honky mitts on sage. Besides Amazon, it’s even available at Walmart. Why not point out that, if you live in areas compatible with growing white sage, you could…
Hunting camps
Sarah Keller’s description of her journey to use hunting as a way to center herself does not surprise me or many other hunters (“Hunting for myself,” November 2020), though I faced no reality even remotely comparable to hers. I first hunted and shot a rabbit, which my brother and I cooked and ate, about the…
Judi Bari and Redwood Summer
Thank you for publishing Adam Sowards’ excellent perspective (“30 years later, the lessons of Redwood Summer,” November 2020). It’s a good time to remember Judi Bari’s role in helping to organize and publicize the events of that summer and beyond. Her background of living and working as a carpenter in the logging towns of Northern…
Learning in a complex world
I loved Khadijah Queen’s article “Lessons for homeschool” (October 2020). This whole pandemic can be viewed as an opportunity — nowhere more than in breaking our views of education free from the “no child left behind,” “nation at risk” top-down regimentation. It’s a wild and wonderfully complex world we live in, and we need more…
Transitions
As an enthusiastic and longtime HCN subscriber, I was perturbed to open the latest and greatest and not see Brian Calvert’s familiar opening letter, which I looked forward to as a prequel to the articles within. So I turned to page 25 (November 2020) to find a postage-stamp-size description I needed a magnifying glass to…
We are neighbors
Kudos to Paige Blankenbuehler for the balanced and incisive reporting in her article “Grand Disjunction” (October 2020). She approaches the ungainly issue of public-land use through helpful storytelling — local people airing their concerns. It helps to assuage the ills of partisan bickering and realize we must all remain neighbors. Alex KouvelTucson, Arizona This article…
Former HCN interns look back
Our internship provides real-world skills, and a community, for a lifetime.
What firefighters want
In “The Forest Service should embrace a full-time workforce” (July 2020), Anastasia Selby made a compelling argument for full-time employment. However, that is in stark contrast to what many Forest Service firefighters actually want. The seasonality of the job is something the vast majority of wildland firefighters enjoy. The idea that we want to keep…
Good news still exists
The West saw many challenges this year, but there were also joys to be found.
Divided prospects: The fight over an immigration detention center
When a private prison company came to Evanston, Wyoming, local officials believed an economic revival was at hand. Instead, it unleashed a bitter debate.
A helpline connects Indigenous immigrants to crucial COVID-19 information
For communities who speak Indigenous Mayan languages like Mam, the Oregon program is a vital resource.
20 signs that the climate crisis has come home to roost
From Alaska to Wyoming, evidence shows the climate is off-kilter in the West.
In California, 1 million people lack access to clean water
Why one community has struggled with arsenic in its water for so long, despite the state’s Human Right to Water law.
Elections in the West highlight divisions and diversity
Justice, power and environment: The 2020 elections were defined by grassroots organizing and deep partisanship.
Trump administration chops logging restrictions in the Tongass National Forest
But President-elect Biden could reinstate them once in office.
How an intimate burial can make death human-sized
In burying a stranger, a writer learns that dying can be as small and personal as life.
How fossil-fueled politics undermined a backcountry compromise
William Perry Pendley’s illegal stint as agency head undoes a first-of-its-kind land designation in Montana.
A whistleblower speaks out over excavation of Native sites
In California, archaeologists unearthed Indigenous burials 11 years ago, but the remains have yet to be repatriated.
Looking for fresh reads? Western authors weigh in.
Here are some books from 2020 you don’t want to miss this winter.
Climate change intensifies tsunami threat in Alaska
As glaciers retreat and permafrost thaws, massive landslides threaten coastal communities.
Stop the destruction of Tohono O’odham lands
Tohono O’odham Chairman Ned Norris Jr. urges Congress to take action and stop Trump’s border wall.
Trump gutted NEPA regulations, but a Biden presidency could restore them
An environmental lawyer discusses the future of the country’s bedrock environmental law.
How conservation groups confront distrust from communities of color
In order to attract a broader constituency, organizations must first address a history of missteps and exclusion.
Black cowboys reclaim their history in the West
At an annual rodeo in Phoenix, the contributions of African Americans are finally recognized.