With the new year comes a new look for High Country News! We’re pleased to offer you the first issue of our revamped magazine, in which you’ll find the rich and nuanced reporting and analysis you’ve come to expect from us, now bolstered by a reimagined design and new vision for the future. Our editor-in-chief explains the issue’s new features on page 25.
As writer Ben Goldfarb details, wildlife crossings have become a popular way to keep car-creature collisions in check and allow animals to travel through landscapes otherwise fractured by pavement. But a plan to build three such bridges over Targhee Pass, at the edge of Island Park, Idaho, ran into a different kind of fault line: a distrust of outsiders and a desire to exact local control over public lands.
In Island Park, different groups of people connected the same dots in vastly different ways, at times drawing connections that, to others, veered into absurdity. Tracing how they came to those conclusions won’t lead to agreement, of course, but it might lead to a deeper understanding of — and empathy for — the myriad individuals who call the West home.
High Country News is celebrating the very same milestone this year. And five decades of chronicling the complexities of the American West have left us with one conclusion: From the highways of Idaho to the fields of California, there are always more stories to be told from this fascinating place.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A fresh start for 2020.
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