Great essay by Aaron Gilbreath (HCN, 9/5/11)! I got to Phoenix in July of 1965, when there was still a real monsoon season that brought rain with the dust, and cooler evenings. The city didn’t have the wildlife that keep you company, but you knew you were in the desert during the dry times, too, […]
Communities
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
The violence of the open road
If you stand near the highway and listen to the trucks rip past at 85 to 90 miles per hour, you should be disturbed (HCN, 8/22/11). These speeds and the vehicle weights are lethal. The violence here is profound, and yet it has become normalized. It is absurd what we sacrifice for mobility: air, water, […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
The mirage of pristine wilderness
One summer day, I went with my father and daughter to Schmitz Park in West Seattle, famous for being among the only chunks of old-growth forest within city limits. A few urban noises penetrated the 50-acre park, mostly airplanes and boat horns. But it was markedly quiet — and beautiful. The turf was springy with […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
‘Never again’
WYOMING With the cutting of a ceremonial barbed wire fence, the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center near Cody, Wyo., officially opened Aug. 20. It was a dramatic moment for the more than 250 Japanese Americans who were present: All had been imprisoned there during World War II. A crowd of nearly 1,200 other people joined […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
A part of something old: writer Kim Stafford’s storied places
In southwest Portland lies a strip of untamed land, bounded by busy roads in a dense, urban landscape. It is not a park, simply a tract of woods that developers missed. It is also not pristine nature, but it is what writer and Portland native Kim Stafford calls a “scattered Eden.” Those woods are just […]
Posted inWotr
Only one thing is certain: A grizzly got killed
As with most crime stories, the details of why Jeremy Hill killed a grizzly bear in northern Idaho were slow to emerge. The federal prosecutors who charged Hill with a misdemeanor in early August were stingy with information, beyond saying that he had killed the juvenile male on his property, thereby violating the Endangered Species […]
Posted inGoat
The middles of nowhere
Crossposted from the Last Word on Nothing As someone preoccupied with odd, mysterious places, I have a longstanding appreciation for an odd, mysterious organization called The Center for Land Use Interpretation. Equal parts arts organization, archive, and amateur detective agency, the Los Angeles-based CLUI (rhymes with gooey) has a particular interest in the forgotten spaces of the […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Cody Cortez: A faux-file of the West’s most mysterious writer
As fiercely reclusive as he is enigmatic, Cody Cortez is probably the most compelling Western writer you’ve never heard of. He lives off the grid and loathes the trappings of the literary life, spurning bookstore readings and appearances on National Public Radio. Among devotees, though, the pages of his books-in-progress, especially his memoir-in-the-making, Cowboy Rinpoche, […]
Posted inGoat
The business of banking
Early this August, 12 branches of a bank serving rural Washington state — the Colfax-based Bank of Whitman — shuttered their doors for good. The closure is just one more in a long series of bank failures stemming from the financial crisis. The vast majority of banks are community banks, making up 98 percent of […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Seeds of atonement: an interview with writer Shann Ray
The short stories in Shann Ray’s first book, American Masculine, reflect his lifelong interest in forgiveness and redemption, as well as in basketball and the American West. Ray’s characters struggle to live up to their families’ expectations and look up to those who are “more ready to give and forgive.” Ray, who grew up in […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Don’t tell her she can’t: a profile of author Mary Clearman Blew
Author and professor Mary Clearman Blew grew up on cattle ranches outside Lewistown, Mont., in the ’40s and ’50s, the great grand-daughter of homesteaders. She’s written about her family’s legacy and the changing West in nonfiction (All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family), short stories (Runaway), and a novel, Jackalope Dreams, about ranchers […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time to kill my own food
I’m taking a hunter education class in Lander, Wyo., and at the first get-together, I share a table with Ridge, 9, and Dante, 10, cousins who’ve already hunted lots of deer and antelope with their dads and grandpa. They can’t get hunting licenses of their own until they turn 12, but they’re eager to learn […]
Posted inRange
Eating ethically: a tree-hugging former vegetarian learns to hunt
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing. I don’t like guns. I’m almost universally opposed to killing things. So why then, did I spend a recent weekend learning how to handle a shotgun and rifle? What possessed me to take the hunter safety exam necessary for obtaining a hunting license? It began with a dead elk. […]
Posted inWotr
Nature fierce and not so pretty
I’ve never cared much for nature writing as a genre because usually there’s too much wafting, glimmering and shimmering. Things seem to happen outdoors that seldom happen in real life. Animals, for instance, often come off seeming more noble, contemplative and spiritual than humans. I think nature can be just as drunk, self-indulgent and spiteful […]
Posted inWotr
Beware of wolves cloaked in “access”
America’s national forests belong to everyone, and all Americans deserve and rightfully demand access to this national birthright. Such access is like oxygen for hunters and anglers, but beware: Industry barracudas and their pals in Congress are trying to hoodwink sportsmen into supporting bad legislation by promising more lenient access. Today’s case in point is […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Stories like a bale unrolling: a review of Conjugations of the Verb To Be
Conjugations of the Verb To BeGlen Chamberlain193 pages, softcover: $11.95.Delphinium Press, September. The fictional ranching town of Buckle in eastern Montana is the setting for Bozeman writer Glen Chamberlain’s short-story collection Conjugations of the Verb To Be. The stories, though independent, are skillfully intertwined; the lives of the characters overlap and intermingle in the many […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Tales of sagebrush and murder: A review of Assumption
AssumptionPercival Everett272 pages, softcover: $15.Graywolf Press, October. There aren’t nearly enough books set in New Mexico. With its cinematic lighting and uniquely off-kilter characters, the state should grow great novels as plentifully as chiles. Strangely, though, it hasn’t. California author Percival Everett sets out to change that with Assumption, a trilogy of mysteries starring Ogden […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
‘The most sacred form of welfare’
Nevada has two large bodies of natural water within its borders: Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake (HCN, 8/8/11). The state of Nevada has made the choice to sacrifice Walker Lake by over-allocating the upstream water rights to a few upstream communities. As your article stated, irrigation brought glorious benefits, from onions to potatoes, alfalfa and […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
The turn of the wheel: the many lives of writer H. Lee Barnes
“A lot of the themes that I work with are within the context of the lives I have lived,” says Nevada author H. Lee Barnes. “My characters are grassroots people who struggle to make it to the next day.” An Army brat who grew up “all over the Southwest,” Barnes was a Green Beret in […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2011: Redemption
Where’s the good news?
While I was interested in the article, “Looking for Balance in Navajoland,” and am well aware that controversy and upset sell better than routine good performance, I wonder if you could manage at least a couple of stories on some of the success stories in Indian Country (HCN, 8/22/11). There must be many, but one […]