The Legend of Colton H. BryantAlexandra Fuller202 pages, hardcover: $23.95.Penguin Press, 2008. On Valentine’s night in 2006, Colton Bryant fell to his death off a gas rig in the snowy, windswept vastness of Wyoming’s Upper Green River Basin. To most of us, his death was as anonymous as his life; he was just another roughneck […]
Books
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Catastrophe or nature’s process
In The Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens Edited by Charles Goodrich, Kathleen Dean Moore, and Frederick Swanson124 pages, softcover: $15.95. Oregon State University Press, 2008. Twenty-five years after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, Oregon State University sponsored a four-day trip into the blast zone. Scientists, writers, artists and academics came […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
Riders and writers, hobos and fauxbeaux
Riding Toward EverywhereWilliam T. Vollmann188 pages, hardcover: $26.95 Ecco, 2008. Embittered by the policies of the Bush administration, disillusioned by the general fear growing within our society and slowed by age and poor health, National Book Award Winner William T. Vollmann sets out on a series of freight trains through the Western United States. He […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
Dreaming of a New Deal for nature
Sometimes it’s easier to understand why things are the way they are today by looking back to the past. That’s one common reason to study history; another is to see the possibilities in the past that are no longer present today. And then there are those moments when the past illuminates the present and suggests […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Loves, losses and utter disasters
In 1967, Harry Lynch — a tall, gawky 20-year-old who seemed very much out of his element — walked into Ruth Carson’s writing class at a community college in Oakland, Calif., fulfilled an in-class assignment by writing a poem, and became an enduring, persistently enigmatic figure in his teacher’s life. Years later, Ruth, watching television […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Solo journeys, life lessons
The nine essays in Mary Beath’s new book celebrate nature from the viewpoint of an “independent woman pursuing adventures that include self-exploration.” An avid hiker, the artist and award-winning poet moved to New Mexico from New York almost 20 years ago. Her title piece sums up this collection’s recurring theme: the risks and rewards of […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
The (non)idiot’s guide to energy
We all know what a carbon footprint is. But for those ready to go beyond Global Warming 101, energy specialist Carol Sue Tombari has condensed our national conversation about energy decisions into a mercifully compact and readable book called Power of the People: America’s New Electricity Choices. Tombari, the manager of stakeholder relations at the […]
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Cowgirl meets lawsuit
Jackalope Dreams, Mary Clearman Blew’s fifth book and first novel, depicts the head-on collision of the Old West and the New. There are cattle, and meth labs; ranches lost to real estate developers and young people gone to cities; the end of cowboying as a lifelong verb and the rise of cowboy tourism. Corey Henry, […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Words that mountains speak
In the 18th century, when the Romantics looked up at the mountains of Europe, instead of seeing what their predecessors saw – foreboding rocky obstacles to human advance – they saw sublime peaks. Rather than fear, they felt wonder and desire. In a swift shift of perception, they re-wrote European attitudes towards mountains, initiating the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Small-town struggle in a big land
The Enders Hotel, winner of the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, chronicles a childhood and coming of age in Soda Springs, Idaho, amid the beauty of the high desert and the rampant alcoholism of a Western “company”town. After stints elsewhere in Idaho and in Washington, young Brandon Schrand, his mother, and stepfather settle in […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Forces of nature
Amy Irvine, environmental activist, writer and former professional rock climber, sets her memoir, Trespass, in the stark geology of Utah’s red-rock wilderness. Following her father’s suicide, Irvine retreats from Salt Lake City to rural Utah, where she is confronted almost daily by divisive public land-use demands and ubiquitous Mormon missionaries, not to mention her tumultuous […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Rolling on the rivers
In Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West, Page Stegner revels in striking juxtapositions: the fragile beauty of rivers contrasted with their staggering power to destroy; people working to preserve forests and wildlife alongside a younger generation bent on using nature for self-serving purposes. This absorbing collection of essays stems from […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
A life of words and wilderness
Deeply felt, often metaphysical and sometimes maddening, Rick Bass’ memoir describes his long journey West, from the “petrochemical horrors” of Houston to the Yaak Valley in the far northwestern corner of Montana. But his cross-country migration is merely a starting point for the musings in Why I Came West. The book serves as a study […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Lines in the sand
Desert cultures are a breed apart. The environments of each shape the particular ways in which its inhabitants – human and otherwise – survive and express themselves. But beyond each desert’s distinctive topography, climate and culture, “a living river of common heritage runs through them all.” So says Gary Nabhan, Sonoran Desert ecologist and author […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Reasons to stay
“Wyoming,” Charlotte Bacon writes, “made you feel that an articulated reason to stay was a good thing to develop.” In Bacon’s new novel, Split Estate, that nebulous feeling drives Arthur King to leave New York City with his two teenagers, Cam and Celia, after his wife, Laura, commits suicide. He rashly moves the family west […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Thinking like a fish
Chad Hanson used to wonder what music trout would listen to if they could: Brookies might like bluegrass, browns might prefer classical, while rainbows, he thought, would dig grunge tunes from the Pacific Northwest. But he was wrong, he learns. And as Hanson looks for an answer to what might seem like a silly question, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Finding beauty in devastation
Chris Peterson might be the best wildlife photographer you’ve never heard of. With quiet effort over many years of working for the Hungry Horse News, a weekly based in Columbia Falls, Mont., Peterson has honed his craft – stalking birds, bears, gravity-defying mountain goats and the other denizens of Glacier National Park. He captures them […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2008: Seeking the Water Jackpot
Remembering our wildness
What’s so great about being human? Granted, we are, as author Craig Childs acknowledges, “members of a species famous for road building, artwork, and claims of superiority … able to ask many questions and give voluminous answers.” We invented the wheel and the Internet, the vacuum cleaner and the Clapper. But in his latest work, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
Men, machines, memories
The major characters in Five Skies are men at work and men on the run. It’s not surprising that they are men of few words as well. Art Key, a 40-something Hollywood stunt engineer fleeing a guilty conscience, and Ronnie Panelli, a 19-year-old petty thief dodging the law, join aging ranch hand Darwin Gallegos for […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2008: The People of the Sea
Remembering Rrrrrip City!
When I first picked up the anthology Red Hot and Rollin‘, I turned to my husband, a native Oregonian. “So, do you remember the Blazer championship of ’77?” I asked. “Remember it?!” he spluttered. “It was one of the pivotal events of my life!” My husband grew up in one of the 96 percent of […]