In this issue, our feature story looks at the ways our culture criminalizes homelessness, focusing on an Oregon man who was caught in a cycle of poverty and policing that ended in his unexpected death. We also dive into the climate crisis, as drought further stresses the Colorado River Basin and impacts California’s Punjabi American farmers. Elsewhere, we consider what might change under the new administration, as President Joe Biden pauses oil and gas leasing on public lands and halts construction on his predecessor’s border wall. In Nevada, we investigate a lithium mine that was fast-tracked without the input of a nearby tribe. We’re still keeping an eye on COVID-19 — checking out a successful telemedicine program, meeting the foreign-born doctors easing health-care shortages in the West, and talking to a vet-virologist about the first case of the disease in a Utah wild mink. We review a book about life in the Bakken oil fields, ponder new perspectives on art in the desert, and, as always, find something to smile about in our column, “Heard around the West.”
A queer rural future
I am writing to thank you for Eric Siegel’s piece about the Tenacious Unicorn transgender alpaca farm. As an East Coast city-dweller, I am surely not the target audience, but it definitely struck close to home. I grew up in a small town in the country but left because I couldn’t see a future there as…
Artificial divides
I’m a recent subscriber, and while I love the magazine generally, I have to express special admiration for Eric Siegel and Luna Anna Archey’s “Queers, alpacas and guns.” It often seems there is a consensus that certain communities can only find homes in either our urban or our rural spaces, but not both. This has never actually been true, and articles…
Housing challenges
The problems revealed in your interview with Jackie Fielder (“Is it time to decolonize the housing market?” February 2021) are as real as they have been for the history of our nation. The pandemic and the renter problems it has caused and magnified are huge and absolutely impossible to ignore. If we don’t answer the challenge and…
Life after coal
Jessica Kutz’s article about coal on the Diné and Hopi lands was both heartbreaking and uplifting (“Life After Coal,” February 2021). What a perfect place, generally and geographically, for the new Biden administration to walk its talk about supporting Indigenous nations while addressing climate change by fully enabling, with federal funds, the transition to carbon-neutral…
Queers, alpacas, guns
Just finished “Queers, alpacas, guns” (February 2021). It is why I love HCN. Great example of how sometimes you just have to show up and find what is out there — how people learn to coexist where least expected. Keep up the good work. Patricia WestHarrisburg, Pennsylvania This article appeared in the print edition of the…
Our expanding universe
New staff, new technology, more readers.
Winds of change
Thank you for High Country News in general and especially your recent article on the winds of change (“Pro-Trump riots won’t stop the winds of political change blowing in the West,” 1/11/21, web-only). As an Idaho Democrat, it is very helpful to hear this right now. I hope some of those winds blow this way,…
The big issues facing the West
In midst of the hard news, there’s hope and humanity.
Did James Plymell need to die?
How homelessness is criminalized in small cities and towns across the West.
HCN in the 2010s
The era was defined by Malheur, pipeline protests and the beginning of the Trump presidency.
Tired and inspired; wild new world; signs everywhere
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
In Nogales, joy endures
The Borderlands may be militarized, but for writer Alberto Ríos, it’s still home.
Border barrier boondoggle
Trump’s promised inexpensive, impregnable wall was anything but.
A delicate balance
Kudos on Nick Bowlin’s well-written, level-headed, even-handed article (“Second Citizens,” January 2021). As a Colorado native who has lived in the Gunnison Valley for over 27 years, I have paid close attention to the delicate balance between classes, lifestyles and valued labor input, and the efforts to keep this valley viable economically while also welcoming both…
A moving essay
The January issue caught my attention, touching on issues with historical and current causes in my areas of interest. The best was the essay by Kimberly Myra Mitchell (“Through wildland firefighting, finding a space to heal”). I won’t try to put into words the emotions I felt as I finished reading it! I cried. Tommy…
Foreign-born doctors fill physician shortages in the West
Some find a permanent home; others languish in a visa holding pattern.
Will the climate crisis tap out the Colorado River?
Water availability is going from bad to worse in the seven states that rely on the drought-stricken river.
A rural remedy to health care access
A virtual telementoring program helps the West respond to the pandemic.
Despite discrimination and drought, Punjabi Americans farm on
As America’s food basket dries out, Punjabi American growers fear the loss of their hard-earned farmlands.
Nevada lithium mine kicks off a new era of Western extraction
The hastily approved project went forward without comment from the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe.
All fracked up: A debut memoir wrestles with toxic masculinity in the oil fields
Michael Patrick F. Smith’s ‘The Good Hand’ offers sharp observations on North Dakota’s extraction industry.
The alternatives to Instagram-ready desert art
Popular installations often frame the desert as austere and inhospitable. But there are artists who look at the land differently.
New Mexico judge revokes protected lands for jaguars
Conservation groups vow to fight the ruling to help the cats reclaim their historic habitat.
Public land is no longer on sale to oil and gas companies
President Biden’s leasing pause signals a major shift in federal land policy.
Why Utah’s wild mink COVID-19 case matters
‘Vet-virologist’ Anna Fagre discusses the first positive case detected in the wild — and how ‘spillover’ could impact the West.