HEARTBREAKING AND HEALING
Thank you for this outstanding article on the Wakasa monument and the issues surrounding its discovery, excavation and future (“The Topaz Affair,” April 2025).
Kori Suzuki did a thorough and sensitive job researching and reporting an emotional and volatile subject, and he photographed the story beautifully.
It’s not clear that Mr. Wakasa, his relatives and the Wakasa Stone will ever find peace and resolution. But I expect any resolution will come, in part, from Suzuki’s fine reporting.
Tom Graves
San Francisco, California
ANOTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
It would be easy to read “No helping hand here” (April 2025) and walk away with the sense that the Veterans Park Neighborhood doesn’t care about the needs of the unhoused community in Boise.
Interfaith’s current location sits in west downtown Boise, which is prime for development as the city grows and property values are high. This site was sold before Interfaith purchased the new property.
The Veterans Park Neighborhood is already home to several shelters and services for unhoused veterans in recovery, a women and children’s shelter, supportive housing for impoverished seniors and others. The neighborhood is not against helping others but is questioning why this low-barrier shelter needs to be placed in the residential area as well.
Relocating Interfaith to Veterans Park will remove this population from the services they require that are located downtown, nearly three miles away, and they will need to cross a busy six-lane road to access a bus stop.
Veterans Park Neighborhood, a lower-income neighborhood in Boise, is being targeted and sacrificed for developers’ pocketbooks. The article has vilified a working-class neighborhood that, when given a fair hearing, was supported by planning and zoning, the law and common sense.
John Olson
Boise, Idaho
BE WARY OF ‘WILDCRAFTING’
“The Berry Fields” (March 2025) is precisely why I’m extremely cautious, even opposed, to commercial “wildcrafting” or foraging. It’s commoditizing the wild for the financial benefit of the few.
The current “foraging craze” is sending hundreds, probably thousands, of people out into the forests, deserts, meadows to get as big a “haul” of things as possible, usually as Facebook trophies or to sell, as I saw during the recent mushroom season, when dozens and dozens of posts were showing up all over social media advertising various wild-harvested mushrooms for sale, with more than a few showing misidentified species. Commercial “wildcrafting” and foraging takes it to another level, where “product” is often measured in hundreds of pounds.
It is a gift to just be in the woods, let alone to draw sustenance from the forest and land and ocean. I try to spend my time when I’m not in the woods working to figure out ways to heal the land, teach people ethics and understanding, and allow myself to continually be in awe of the gifts the forest and land offers to us.
What I have been taught is there is almost always a sense of reciprocity in a gift. An obligation for both the giver and recipient that keeps our world in balance. Without, we live in a lopsided world that increasingly is off-balance, or koyaanisqatsi, as the Hopi put it. No further proof is needed than looking at our forests and lakes and rivers and ocean to see just how out-of-kilter we’ve truly become.
I hope the folks in this story succeed in stopping commercial harvest of the huckleberries. I’d be happy to see all commercial foraging brought to an end.
Tripp Mikich
Via Facebook
Editor’s note: On March 31, the U.S. Forest Service temporarily paused commercial huckleberry picking in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. See our coverage online.
BULLISH ON BUFFALO
What a fascinating story! (“The art of moving a buffalo,” March 21, 2025) I particularly was impressed with the photography. Owen Preece shows a sense of time and place. I sincerely hope we see more of his work.
Patsy Thompson
Snellville, Georgia
MANIFEST HISTORY
“The Indian education of Charles Sams” (February 2025) had many salient points, but I was totally amazed at one particular phrase: “larger-than-life monument to Indian killer Abraham Lincoln.” Wow! Most people don’t have a clue about the magnitude and scope of these incidents. References to this holocaust just never make it into print; no one wants to hear about it and therefore they don’t. Couple that with a few other very American attitudes and habits, and that cryptic piece of history remains just that: cryptic.
David Glaeseman
Phoenix, Arizona
YES, WE CAN!
Kudos to Michelle Urra for her wonderful illustrations in the February issue of (“A Fight We Can Win,” February 2025). She captures the unique light of the West — and the dark — with her beautiful images. They’re frame-worthy, for sure!
Kris Cloud
Chicago, Illinois
In “A Fight We Can Win,” (February 2025) Alexander Lemons shows what needs to happen in our country — a nationwide restoration program for our ecosystems. We can do this — we have the ingenuity, expertise and manpower. We must do this. It will take great courage and leadership, and I hope to see Lemons on an election ballot soon.
Amy Gulick
Clinton, Washington
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