This month, we look at how Westerners cope with wildfires: In Idaho, small towns clash with the Forest Service over how to manage the forest, while in Oregon, people left homeless by fires find refuge in a Medford hotel. Alaska Natives respond to food insecurity by building biomass-fueled greenhouses, and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes announce a plan concerning the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Water remains a perennial problem: Phoenix, Arizona, is outgrowing its supply, while California’s new groundwater sustainability act is getting off to a troubled start. Asian Americans flock to gun shops after recent attacks, Montana activists continue to fight for racial justice, and cannabis growers use more energy than you’d expect. Finally, we talk to Michelle Nijhuis about her new book and review two other intriguing volumes — “Red Nation Rising” and “Finding the Mother Tree.”
Film: After wildfire, a motel becomes a temporary refuge
Nearly 8,000 people lost their housing in Oregon’s Labor Day fires. Some are finally finding a home, for now.
Hotels for those left unhoused by wildfires
As climate change ratchets up wildfire intensity, an Oregon program provides a step toward home.
Facing future wildfires, a community fights for its forest
Conflicting visions in central Idaho force tough decisions over logging and prescribed burning.
Rapid growth in Arizona’s suburbs bets against an uncertain water supply
‘The alternative is something they don’t want to think about.’
Atascosa Highlands
I just read “The Mountain Islands in the Desert Sea” (May 2021). It’s well-written and has nice photos, but the theme is grossly exaggerated. Sycamore Canyon is one of the best-documented local areas in Arizona: Botanists have visited and collected there for a century or so. In the SEINet database, there are 3,665 records of…
Changes
In the publisher’s note in the May issue, you state that you “cover the West’s thorniest issues and gravitate without hesitation toward difficult conversations.” I’d like to suggest that this was true in the past, but it’s not always true today. You’ve made it clear that some of the major changes you’ve made over the past…
Did James Plymell need to die?
Thank you for the excellent article about James Plymell (“Did James Plymell need to die?” March 2021). I am so deeply moved that you wrote this story. I found it very upsetting myself and wrote a little piece for the local newspaper. To see that someone else took up the story makes me feel not…
Growing pains
Kudos to the citizens of McCall, Idaho, for pushing back on the development swap (“Growing pains,” April 2021). We have already lost more than half our wildlife in the past few decades, and one of the many ways we’re killing them is by developing more and more of their habitat to accommodate our continuous population…
Los Angeles River’s anglers
Miles W. Griffis makes good points about the unintended consequences of the changes in river management in Los Angeles that will further displace the displaced (“The invisible anglers of the Los Angeles River,” May 2021). The push-pull of water management in LA that seeks to control, or eliminate, residential/urban runoff should also be explored. Other…
Montana passenger rail
The possibility of restoring rail passenger service to the former Northern Pacific line in Montana has remained a dream for over 40 years (“Montana counties band together to reinvigorate passenger rail,” May 2021). I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but the logistical challenges to making it a reality have multiplied in the four decades…
Unrecognized
I found the article about the Chinook Indian Nation interesting and enlightening (“Unrecognized,” April 2021). I totally sympathize. We were thrown off our land 200 years ago, and we’re still trying to get it back. Of course, the usurpers claim it’s their land, but not only did they not even exist when we inhabited the…
The final stretch of our 50th anniversary campaign
We’re down to the wire and need your help.
What gun-buying frenzy?
I don’t think the headline “Americans go on a gun-buying frenzy” (May 2021) is accurate. About 15% of Americans (best estimate is 25-35 million) own all the guns, with each owner holding an average of five. Most Americans neither buy nor use guns. Rusty Austin Rancho Mirage, California This article appeared in the print edition…
Keeping up with the changing West
Now more than ever, our issues are intersectional and our fates are intertwined.
Impossible markets; Schroederisms; Western advice
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Cannabis has a carbon problem
The burgeoning marijuana industry gobbles up electricity.
Will a Native-led initiative spur an agricultural revolution in rural Alaska?
A grassroots project to build biomass-heated greenhouses aims to alleviate food insecurity in the communities most affected by it.
The fight for racial justice in Montana, one year out
From Havre to Bozeman, the push for equity persists.
The West’s Asian Americans arm up for self-defense
Once denied their Second Amendment rights, Asian Americans are heading to gun shops in droves.
How Suzanne Simard changed our relationship to trees
In ‘Finding the Mother Tree,’ a maverick forest ecologist relates her scientific journey — one that follows in the footsteps of traditional Indigenous knowledge.
The everyday violence of Indian Country’s ‘bordertowns’
In ‘Red Nation Rising,’ violence in the communities abutting reservations illuminates colonialism’s continued presence.
How ‘sustainable’ is California’s groundwater sustainability act?
Numerous issues around equity and the plan’s rollout loom.
Tribes unveil landmark missing and murdered Indigenous person response
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes worked with federal agencies to complete a first of its kind plan to address the crisis.
Supreme Court of Canada affirms trans-boundary Indigenous rights
The Arrow Lakes Band is one of many Indigenous communities bisected and disrupted by a border about which they were never consulted.
Species conservation is a human problem
Writer Michelle Nijhuis synthesizes the story of modern-day conservation in her new book ‘Beloved Beasts.’