Here in the West, uranium mining continues its wobbly resurgence. In recent years, it has sputtered through the peaks and valleys of pricing to once again climb in importance and output. The graph-line of this revival seems to correspond with the vicissitudes of our love-hate relationship with fossil fuels. In 2003, a time of cheap […]
Communities
Posted inWotr
“We’ve seen this movie before”
“The task is great. So is the need. And there is no time to lose,” said Exxon executives in their infamous “White Paper” of 1980. Those bombastic words came at the conclusion of Exxon’s plan to help solve the nation’s energy crisis of the 1970s. Long lines at the pump and oil embargoes had prompted […]
Posted inWotr
Fighting fire and memories
It’s been almost 16 years since a firestorm ignited on Storm King Mountain in western Colorado, killing 14 firefighters, including my friend, Roger Roth. A lot can happen in 16 years. I’ve married and divorced. I’ve moved three times. My knees have turned cranky, my hair gone grayer. Now I swing a pulaski beside men […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
New world, new canvas
Ex-priest reconstructs a working-class history from Basque arborglyphs
Posted inWotr
Springtime in the Rockies
The Mancos Valley reverberates with the gush of its namesake river in an annual rite of spring runoff. These waters are a perfect metaphor for starting a new life — allowing winter’s rigidity to melt and wash away. In this high mountain ranching valley of Colorado, the first water flows through irrigation spigots and onto […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Nature illiteracy
Pine grosbeak? How about just seeing a bird as a bird.
Posted inWotr
Boots on the trail ought to pay up
My first introduction to Colorado’s 14,421-foot Mount Massive was, quite literally, a pile of crap. Several piles, actually, just off the trailhead where I’d wandered to pee. Some were flagged with toilet paper; others disguised with a thin sprinkling of pine needles. I walked with care. It was a skill that I would have to […]
Posted inRange
Do you need to see a doctor? Queue up.
Part one in a two-part series “I need to see a doctor.” These six words have been written into our programming as modern humans. We wait in line at the clinic. We make an appointment. We know instinctively that this is the one person to see who can check out our health, fix us up […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Pika positives
Molly Samuel’s article “Pika politics” highlights the difficulties and nuances in determining whether species should be listed under the Endangered Species Act (HCN, 4/26/10). It’s very apparent that species in peril will have difficulty getting listed in the current fiscal and political climate around the ESA. While some lament the pika not being listed for […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Stories from the shadow sides
Boys and Girls Like You and MeAryn Kyle225 pages, hardcover: $24.Scribner, 2010. Writer Aryn Kyle, who was raised in Grand Junction, Colo., examines the frontier between childhood and adulthood in 11 stories threaded by themes of solitude and unrest. The characters — precocious girls, a middle-school boy, women caught in adulterous or unstable relationships — […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Did you get your cow?
Your article on wolf hunting in Montana was certainly written from a hunter’s perspective (given that the writer is a Field & Stream contributing editor), and I respected his take on the issue, complete with those hunter magazine close-ups of people “bagging” a wolf (HCN, 5/10/10). I did find the article wanting from two other […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Everyone benefits from Indian education
When Lenna Little Plume started second grade at Lewis and Clark Elementary in Missoula, Mont., in 2006, statistics suggested that she might have a bleak future. Montana’s American Indian families earn 25 percent less than the average family — an economic reality that can put Indian children at a disadvantage from their very first day […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
HCN’s key numbers: 3, 170, 20
To save some money during these tight times, the High Country News Board of Directors held its late spring meeting over the phone and Internet on May 20. Thanks to the marvels of technology, including the tiny cameras in most of our computers, the experience wasn’t half bad. Board president Florence Williams of Boulder, Colo., […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
It’s a thin line between law and hate
My May 10 issue arrived with two references to the recent Arizona bill signed into law regarding enforcement of federal immigration laws. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon’s quote about the authors of the bill not representing Arizona is simply not true. Fact: Over 70 percent of Arizonans supported the bill. Apparently both Phil Gordon and the […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Making mining pay
Kudos to Judith Lewis for her insightful and balanced report on Nevada’s bondage to the mining industry (HCN, 4/26/10). As one who lives within 20 miles of a Barrick behemoth, I am deeply distressed at how megacorporations like Kinross-Barrick ravage Nevada’s unspoilt wilderness areas to satisfy their quest for profit. As the leach pads pile […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Notes from a Wyoming sheepwagon
Claiming GroundLaura Bell256 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. A pretty minister’s daughter from Kentucky might not be the kind of person you’d expect to find herding sheep in the lonesome expanse of Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. But when Laura Bell graduated from college in 1977, she felt drawn to the nomadic life she’d glimpsed […]
Posted inWotr
Dress code for the Western guy
Wranglers, snap shirts, and cowboy hats — horse optional.
Posted inWotr
First clean up, then talk more mining
Trust us, the industry giants keep saying as they try to assure us they can mine the earth without harming it. Trust us, for we have the best technology now and have learned from our mistakes. Trust us, for we have every possible safeguard in place for every event that could go terribly wrong. Trust […]