“Don’t touch that!” is what most kids hear when they investigate dead animals. But in Hayden, Colo., elementary school teachers are encouraging students – armed with maps and global positioning systems – to go in search of roadkill. Second- and fourth-grade students at Hayden Valley Elementary School have produced a map of roadkill patterns along […]
Books
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Mary Colter discovered
Mary Colter, like other female artists of the Southwest, was inspired by the region’s vivid landscapes and indigenous cultures. But unlike Georgia O’Keeffe or Terry Tempest Williams, Colter remained largely unknown to the public and her peers during her lifetime. Following her death in 1958, she sank further into obscurity — until recently. Arnold Berke’s […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Hit the audio road in Nevada
“I wasn’t sure what I had found, but I knew it was Nevada,” says Jon Christensen, as he drives the so-called Extra-Terrestrial Highway in eastern Nevada. The road flanks Area 51, the top-secret military facility where scientists are rumored to be studying captured aliens. Originally a series on Nevada Public Radio, Nevada Variations is a […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Birdman’s biography soars
He’s known as the Birdman of Boise, and is perhaps the most underrated conservationist in the West. In Cool North Wind: Morley Nelson’s Life with Birds of Prey, Idaho writer Stephen Stuebner tells the story of a former Soil Conservation Service employee, “a flamboyant salt-of-the-earth character, a father of four, a husband, a widower, a […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
On the WaterWatch
Oregon’s rivers may run dry again this summer, but you can still saturate yourself with information about your favorite Beaver State stream. That’s because WaterWatch of Oregon has restructured its Web site to serve as a clearinghouse on state rivers. WaterWatch of Oregon, a nonprofit conservation group founded in 1985, is dedicated to restoring and […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth
The word “beauty” does not normally come to mind at the mention of bomb testing, open-pit mining, chemical disposal, or the marks these activities have left on the Western landscape. But Changing the Earth, a book and traveling exhibit of Emmet Gowin’s aerial photographs, lends rich texture and a mysterious vitality to the Hanford Nuclear […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The Underground Heart: Return to a Hidden Landscape
I loved the desert when I lived in El Paso, but as a native, I had no environmental concerns. There was no such thing back then. We were too busy growing up in a vast landscape that could never change. — Ray Gonzalez, The Underground Heart Ray Gonzalez grew up on the Mexican border, in […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
White House record on rollbacks
It’s undoubtedly grim reading. But it should be required for every conservationist — Democrat, Green, Republican or Independent. The Natural Resources Defense Council has just released its review of the Bush administration’s 2002 record on the environment. In Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment, the council details more than 100 federal […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Does your representative make the grade?
It’s report card time again for Congress, and Western politicians are seeing more Fs than As. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ annual National Environmental Scorecard, Western congressional members had some of the worst environmental voting records in the nation. Out of a possible score of 100, the senators of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Tangled up in blue
“It has been rightly said: Color is the first principle of place.” A quick look across any desert reveals a lack of watery blues and leafy greens. But Ellen Meloy fills that void in her memoir, The Anthropology of Turquoise. She uses turquoise — the color and the mineral — to explore desert geology, flora […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Thank you, readers
Thank you, readers! The Spreading the News Campaign came to a successful conclusion Dec. 31, 2002. Your generous contributions have provided a stunning $1.36 million to support High Country News’ new media and intern programs. With your help, we’re reaching millions of Westerners: Radio High Country News, our weekly half-hour show, is now broadcast on […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Short Takes
Bruce Babbitt will be the keynote speaker at the 26th Annual Public Lands and Resources Law Review Conference. “Public Lands, Private Gains” will be held at the University of Montana-Missoula on March 13-15. For more information, visit www.umt.edu/ publicland/26conf.htm. To register, call 406/243-6568. Head to Sacramento for the Water Education Foundation’s 20th Annual Executive Briefing […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
As the dust settles
Asbestos from one of the nation’s worst Superfund sites has killed over 200 in Libby, Mont., and infected hundreds more with lung disease (HCN, 3/13/00: Libby’s dark secret). To outsiders, life in Libby might seem unfathomable. But in the video documentary, Dust to Dust, director Michael Brown shows how residents manage to persevere in the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Born to be winter wild
For years, the only national organization representing winter recreation required members to embrace the two-stroke engine. But two years ago, a group of backcountry winter-recreation groups in California, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada united to create the Winter Wildlands Alliance to work for “human-powered” winter recreation on public lands. Today, the Boise, Idaho-based Alliance serves as […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Eco-groovy food for skinny wallets
While your favorite organic food brand guarantees a pesticide-free, responsibly grown product, it’s usually fortified with a hefty price tag. There’s relief: The Portland, Ore.-based Food Alliance offers consumers and farmers a label — guaranteeing products grown and harvested in equitable and safe conditions, using sustainable farming practices, and with little or no pesticides — […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Memories of a native river
The Columbia River today is tamed: Dams regulate water for farms and generate electricity. Rapids are a thing of the past. The wild salmon still left in the river have to be barged upstream to spawn. But, if you flip the pages of William D. Layman’s coffee-table book, Native River, and allow yourself to be […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Living in harm’s way
Unlike water, denial is in excess supply in California. Half the residents west of the 100th meridian live in that state, and 80 percent of them live in areas that have been rattled by major earthquakes. Northern Californians, for example, straddle 60 miles of the deadly Hayward fault; the late Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Living in harm’s way
Unlike water, denial is in excess supply in California. Half the residents west of the 100th meridian live in that state, and 80 percent of them live in areas that have been rattled by major earthquakes. Northern Californians, for example, straddle 60 miles of the deadly Hayward fault; the late Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2003: The death of the Super Hopper
Nevada’s desert beauty
On the 400-square-mile playa at the heart of northeastern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the terrain is so flat that you’re sometimes better off looking at the GPS unit on your dashboard than at the road in front of you. Though you might run into locals enjoying the obscure sport of “land sailing,” or into temporarily […]