As I shut the door on my way to work last month, something caught my eye: Two moose, a cow and a calf, stood just 20 yards away, looking as though they hoped I hadn’t noticed them –– something hard to avoid doing, given their size. As I scrambled for my camera, they vanished into […]
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Heading out of fall’s impending darkness
One day in October every year, I leave my home valley and make a pilgrimage up into Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. I am not seeking enlightenment, exactly. I am seeking simply light. My birthday falls on Oct. 10, long enough past the fall equinox that the ever-growing darkness of autumn can no longer be denied. Every […]
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A grisly death in Alaska
A man from San Diego was killed by a grizzly bear recently, on the Toklat River in Alaska on the same overcast day that my son and I played in the woods outside of our cabin, 30 miles away. The Toklat River bar is a place my family has often hiked, saturated in Denali’s scenery. […]
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Singing about a land where free rivers flow on
Woody Guthrie is 100 years old this year, and alive as you or me. Music has a way of cutting the corner on mortality. What do you hear in his songs about America? I’m swept into a tangle of love, gratitude, unease, anger, respect, heartbreak, awe, curiosity and joy. His songs contain that jumble of […]
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Arizona voters face an IQ test on public lands
Arizona voters face two land-related ballot measures this November, and together, they reveal not just the state’s split personality but that of the West as well. You can think of Proposition 119 as a respectable Dr. Jekyll, a 19th century gentleman who wants the state and federal government to exchange land to improve management and […]
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Living with autism
School is back in session, and once again I’m grateful. As the parent of an autistic son, I’ve become comfortable with the notion of school as not just a learning opportunity for Harrison, but also as respite care as well. When Harrison is back in school, I have a block of time to work. It’s […]
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Budget cuts to natural resource programs hurt more than they help
There is no doubt that our nation cannot continue to plunge deeper in debt while borrowing huge sums each year. Most of us know that addressing this crisis will require cuts in both annual domestic and defense spending, but most critical are significant changes in the big programs like Social Security and Medicare, and reform […]
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Keystone XL is still a questionable pipeline
Besides repealing “Obamacare,” Mitt Romney has said he would issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on his very first day as president. That’s an interesting statement from a candidate who, when it comes to other issues, portrays himself as a standard-bearer for states’ rights. In this case, he seems to be saying that […]
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As the housing market improves, have we learned to live more modestly?
The trouble with dream houses — the dream homes on the dream streets of big-city real estate tours, or tucked among canyons near resort areas like Sun Valley, Idaho — is that dreams tend to change over time. Despite the notion that a dream is a private world that only the dreamer can know, dreams […]
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Don’t lock us out of our land
When I parked beside the locked gate at the Forest Service’s recreation site, a hefty entrance sign that had been bolted together out of four-by-fours lay flat on the gravel. The steel tube where campers were supposed to deposit their fee had an autumn shade of rust spiraling up its trunk. A welcome sign had […]
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Hanford’s nuclear history is messy, but worth preserving
Hanford, in eastern Washington, is arguably the most polluted radioactive waste site in America. Yet if Congress passes pending legislation now backed by the Obama administration and members of Congress from both parties, parts of Hanford will be included in a new national historic park. The intent of the proposed park is to preserve relics […]
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Our survival depends on fighting climate change
I am 88 and have seen a lot of change over the decades, but I do not think anyone living now has ever faced a more serious threat to life than the threat of global climate change. As President Obama said recently, “More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat […]
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The “truth” about organic food
The way headlines broke after a recent Stanford study comparing organic food to food grown on conventional farms, you’d think organic had been shot and left for dead. The New York Times, for example, announced that “Stanford scientists cast doubt on advantages of organic meat and produce.” Maybe the doubt was inferred from the study’s […]
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Childhood’s end
My 7-year-old daughter Willa came home from school last week and said she knew what sex was. Her friend Melissa had told her. “OK, what is it?” My wife Ellen asked, as I poured the bourbon for the Manhattan I knew I’d need. “It’s when a man and a woman lie down together and kiss.” […]
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Harness the wind, create a job
In mid-August, Vestas, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind power turbines, announced it would cut 20 percent of the workforce at its Pueblo, Colo., plant. Less than a week later, the company said it would lay off an additional 1,400 workers worldwide. “It is always unfortunate to have to say goodbye to good colleagues in […]
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Pondering change in the Great Basin
I’m standing on the shores of Summer Lake, or, to be more accurate, what used to be a lakeshore but is now a dry lakebed in Oregon’s high desert. I’m here with a group of writers, scientists and artists, all of us gathered to talk about changes in the northern Great Basin. Sharp environmental contrasts, […]
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Does taking our kids into the wild make us dangerous parents?
It began even before the kids were born, more than 20 years ago. Marypat finally got pregnant after years of miscarriages. We were halfway through winter in a cabin hundreds of miles from the nearest pavement, halfway through a 14-month canoe expedition, alone, vulnerable and perfectly content. The advice we got, from family, from friends, […]
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Don’t look for the frontier in Alaska
Alaska. The word tumbles out like a wild stream, carrying a cascade of images: grizzly bears, glaciers, vast mountains, Native villages. It’s the Alaska we believe in, an American Eden for lovers of wilderness. But as change sweeps the state, the veneer is cracking. In the southeastern panhandle, the famed Inside Passage bordering British Columbia, […]
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Giving names to smoke and fire
We name fires the way we name hurricanes, giving them the identity that comes with our naming. Naming our fears also makes them a little more manageable, which is probably the main reason we go to the doctor, seeking a word for what ails us, because having that name is at least as comforting as […]
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Taking my chances in grizzly country
When I travel in grizzly bear country (admittedly less often than I used to and far less frequently than I would like), I leave the bear spray at home. In fact, I’ve never even owned a canister of it. Never wanted to. My basic rationale, if you can call it that, is that I would […]