We were all outside watching the sunset from the casita, which had a high view of the city. From there, the “big picture” was not abstract. It was real, tangible, visible – we could just make out the Burger King sign towering beyond the border fence. The sun was blood red, and then the whole […]
Books
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Benigna’s Chimayo: Cuentos from the Old Plaza
And then Grandma sits down on an old wooden wheel, leans on her knees, tucks her skirt between her legs, and begins her favorite of the old stories. I listen, watching the dust motes float in shafts of sunlight … To a young Don Usner, summers in the New Mexican hamlet of Chimayo meant chili […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Fool’s Gold: Telluride’s ‘magical realism’
Rob Schultheis moved to Colorado in 1973, when pop stars began singing about the Rocky Mountains and asking whether you’d ever been “mellow.” His newest book, Fool’s Gold, zooms in on his home turf of Telluride, where “summer is briefer than a butterfly’s dream … autumn an afterthought, and winter rules.” When Schultheis arrived, Telluride […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Billboards blast bomb industries
Tourists driving I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe expect to see billboards extolling ski resorts, restaurants and casinos, but may be surprised by a series of evocative ads that question the nuclear-weapons industry in New Mexico. The Los Alamos Study Group, a nonprofit, research-oriented, nuclear disarmament organization in Santa Fe, has placed five billboards with […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian
Visionary photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis spent 30 years documenting the waning cultures of North American Indians. But following his death in 1952, his work plummeted into obscurity. Curtis’ photographs were a mix of stoic portraiture, peopled landscapes and illustrations of tribal life. He photographed Nez Perce Chief Joseph, Apache leader Geronimo, and a host of […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
How Utah got that way
Geology is a hard thing to miss in southern Utah. Unless you travel through the state blindfolded, you have probably wondered about the evolution of the region’s dramatic cliffs, spires and canyons. Maybe that’s why there are so many guidebooks that aim to decipher the area’s layered landscape. Unlike most popular guidebooks, The Geology of […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Wild in the city
Too often when we speak of wildness in the West, we only envision vast untracked settings like the Bob Marshall Wilderness, High Unitas or the Owyhee Canyonlands. It is easy to forget that wildness can still be found within our ever-growing urban landscapes. Now, editors Michael Houck and M.J. Cody have released a new book, […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Mystery on the Colorado
Glen and Bessie Hyde floated the Green and Colorado rivers on their honeymoon in 1928. Aboard a two-ton sweep scow made from scrounged wood, and with a little experience gleaned from rivers in Idaho, the newlyweds made their way through Labyrinth, Stillwater, Cataract and Glen canyons before facing the awesome power of the Colorado in […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Watershed Wars
“Rather than follow a time line, I’ve followed the river, pursuing an upstream journey that began in Wind River Canyon and will end at the headwaters near the Continental Divide.” With these words, former High Country News editor Geoffrey O’Gara embarks on a meandering course through Indian dispossession, legal wrangling, floundering farm communities, and reservation […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Idaho wants to help manage federal lands
Idahoans may soon have more say about how federal forestlands are managed. In 1998, the Idaho State Land Board appointed a group of eight recreationists, teachers, lawyers and timber company executives to devise ways that locals could work with the federal government to manage public lands. In late February, the committee released Breaking the Gridlock. […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Columbia Champion
In the early ’80s, when construction started on the massive Glen Jackson bridge across the Columbia River, opening up the Washington side of the river to Portland commuter sprawl, Nancy Russell took action. She founded the 3,200-member Friends of the Columbia Gorge, parlayed hard-won media backing for protection of the Gorge into support from local […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Not your average Paul Bunyan
Not all forest workers wield axes and chainsaws. In the oral history compilation Voices from the Woods: Lives and Experiences of Non-timber Forest Workers, 32 mushroom harvesters, tree planters, medicinal herb gatherers, and wild huckleberry harvesters articulate their lives and work in the forests of the Pacific Northwest (HCN, 2/15/99: An entrepreneurial spirit). Antonio Perez […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
The other Mexico
Certainly the press, other governments and tourists are most aware of the official, elite, corrupt Mexico; the Mexico that won’t allow a poor man a chance; the Mexico behind the sunglasses. I’ve even been told by people, including Mexicans, that this is Mexican culture. But I know that’s not true. There is another Mexico. — […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Keeping ranchers’ options open
Among his fellow New Mexico ranchers, Sid Goodloe is known as a contrarian (HCN, 4/15/96: Raising a ranch from the dead). His newest project, the Southern Rockies Agricultural Land Trust, is keeping that reputation intact. Goodloe hopes to convince his neighbors that conservation easements – voluntary legal agreements that prohibit development of private land – […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Priests preach to the choir: Protect the Columbia
The Roman Catholic Church isn’t traditionally considered the home of radical greens. But 12 bishops from the Pacific Northwest and Canada have jumped into the environmental fray, and in late February, they released a long-awaited and controversial pastoral letter about the Columbia River (HCN, 9/11/00: Holy water). The letter, nourished by three years of discussion […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Water Watch
Boulder, Colo., residents can now check on the health of their watershed by surfing the Web. The Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network (BASIN) Web site publishes water quality indicators and trends in the Boulder Creek watershed, which provides water for the city of Boulder. The site also includes snowpack information, an air-quality index, and information […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Land Use Conference
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and author John Maclean will speak to planners, attorneys and developers at the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute’s Land Use Conference, April 19-20, at the University of Denver. Thirty panels and 100 presenters will cover topics such as Western wildfires, smart growth and regional planning. […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Assessing Sunbelt sprawl
A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance. Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university researchers, […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Easement saves artifacts
Conservation easements usually protect open space on private land (HCN, 2/28/00: Acre by acre: Can land trusts save the West’s disappearing open space?), but a new easement in southwestern Colorado also protects what’s underneath the land. In December, an agreement between landowner Don Dove and the Montezuma Land Conservancy preserved 110 acres of ancestral Puebloan […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Out of the grave
Presumed dead for nearly two decades, the Mountain Gazette, the rough-cut and barbed-tongued journal of 1970s mountain culture, has been exhumed, resuscitated and, according to its editors, “printed on paper so damned biodegradable … that you can pour milk on it and eat it.” Among its glossy newsstand rivals, the resurrected Gazette looms like a […]