I like how our local cemetery, nestled in the shoulder of a small hill above town, is shaped by both natural and human forces. Among the varied stones and markers of the dead and a scattering of native juniper trees and planted arborvitae, I will usually spot a small herd of mule deer and loose […]
Communities
Posted inWotr
Remember the mines before China buys them all
In 1911, Thomas Edison received an odd gift from some Western mining executives: a cubic foot of solid copper. The aging inventor joked that the 486-pound cube might make a nice paperweight. He kept it on display at his New Jersey laboratory, a shiny reminder that the light bulb that made him rich and famous […]
Posted inWotr
The West’s dams share a dirty secret
Soon after I moved to Colorado from the humid Midwest 20 years ago, I learned that a reservoir is not a lake. My family and I were eager to test our new canoe on the local reservoir, which I’d driven by a month earlier. Its dark waters lapped against a thick conifer forest. I couldn’t […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
The sign maker
When you arrive in town, anywhere in Stehekin, his signs are the first thing you see. On slabs of wood chainsaw-ripped and elegantly routed, in rustic block print or flowing cursive, Phil’s signs are never stenciled, never sloppy. They mark the post office, the school, the bakery. They mark trailheads and trail junctions. They are, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“Sign up now, get free gun.”
MONTANA What’s next — offering a free derringer with every mammogram or a free Uzi with the purchase of a La-Z-Boy? You just might see it happen, because guns sell. The managers of a Radio Shack in Hamilton, Mont., found that out after they placed a giant sign above their Super Store: “Protect yourself with […]
Posted inWotr
Journeys we take at home
Every day, I hear the same thing from parents whose children have grown up. “Enjoy it while you can,” they tell me. “It goes so fast.” With a 3-year-old boy, Elias, who consistently wakes up in the middle of the night “needing sumfin” and a 6-year-old girl, Willa, who also wakes up frequently, saying “I […]
Posted inGoat
Sublime tourist trap or logistical nightmare?
Take a moment to consider the greats: The world’s largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, Illinois. (Photo courtesy of Max Stahl) Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska. (Photo courtesy of Ian, a.k.a. Sandstep).
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
The SWOP letter
Signed by 100 people of color, charging racism in the environmental movement
Posted inWotr
The wall along our southern border is a joke
In the minds of many Americans, the U.S. border with Mexico has become the heart of darkness, a place wracked with violence and beyond the reach of the law. Politicians play up these fears with legislation such as the bill introduced last month by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, which would require hundreds of miles […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
A deadly fastball in Denver: A review of The Ringer
The RingerJenny Shank 304 pages, hardcover: $28.The Permanent Press, 2011. The slaying of a Mexican-American immigrant triggers parallel experiences of personal anguish, family discord and cultural dissonance, seen alternately through the eyes of the dead man’s widow and the cop who shot him. “His thoughts were a confusing jumble of elation, dread, relief and fear,” […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Welcome, Todd; goodbye, Ellen
HCN welcomes Todd Chamberlin, our new outreach director. Todd will be helping us increase our subscriber and donor base by organizing special fund-raising and marketing campaigns. Todd brings with him a wealth of business and marketing experience; for seven years, he was the director of eCommerce and Internet Development at National Geographic, where he developed […]
Posted inWotr
Just call me a RAC star
I got a note from Ken Salazar the other day. I was glad to hear from him. It had been a while since we had visited. Well, OK … we’ve never visited. The secretary of Interior doesn’t know me from Adam’s cat. But still, it was nice to hear from him. I don’t get all […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Defense mechanisms
COLORADO “Plants can’t run and hide” in the world, so over time, some have evolved the ability to alter their structure when they perceive a threat. That’s the mechanism now being exploited by Colorado State University biologist Jane Medford, as she and some 30 undergraduate and graduate students genetically engineer plants to signal the presence […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t blame it all on global climate change
Recently, I was astonished to read a paper published by a prestigious institution that stated — without qualification — that Colorado’s current bark beetle epidemic could be pinned on the donkey of climate change. More amazing yet, this paper said that Vail Resorts now seeds clouds because of the unreliable snow caused by climate change. […]
Posted inRange
The hard drinkers aren’t in the West
The West has the two-fisted image as a land of hard drinking, but it may not deserve that reputation, according to statistics compiled by America’s Health Rankings. The survey looked at “binge drinking,” defined as the percentage of population over 18 years old which has, in the preceding 30 days, had more than five drinks […]
Posted inArticles
Uncommon Westerner: Bevan Frost crafts custom guitars
Wyoming native and luthier Bevan Frost discusses how he started making guitars, shows some works in progress, and tells how living in the rural West shapes his craft.
Posted inGoat
New Mexico Exhibit Redefines Landscape Photography
If gallery goers at the opening of Earth Now: American Photographers and the Environment expected mantel-ready frames of distant peaks and sinuous canyons, they would have been surprised by a collection that stands nearly in defiance of traditional landscape photography. “Landscapes can be boring,” said Kate Ware, the exhibition’s curator at the New Mexico Museum […]
Posted inArticles
How the Civil War shaped the West
Tomorrow is the sesquicentennial of the start of the Civil War. At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate cannons began firing on Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, near Charleston, S.C., in what most historians regard as the first battle of America’s bloodiest conflict — one that killed more soldiers than all the rest of […]
Posted inWotr
The way the West was can be seen again
Back when I was a boy, we used to roll our eyes at tiresome coots who would begin reminiscences with “Back when I was a boy…” Today, as my 50s draw toward a close, I somehow find myself with a lot more sympathy for old-timers. I admit that recollections can be boring. And yet, as […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 11
Spring storms have kept the mountains in Western Colorado clad in winter white into early April, but they have not deterred the apricot trees in the valley below to burst out in flower. These blossoms adorn an old, gnarled specimen behind the High Country News office.