MONTANASometimes you have to look a little silly to get the job done. It’s a risk Mark Renner, an avid bowhunter, was willing to take when he designed a hat to fool pronghorn antelope. The wily animals were always quick to flee once they spotted Renner standing up to shoot, so he tried outfitting a […]
Communities
Posted inMay 10, 2010: The Secret Lives of River Guides
The Secret Lives of River Guides
Grand Canyon boatman culture converges at “spring training”
Posted inGoat
Oh vaulted ancestors!
The Granite Mountain Record Vault is a veritable temple, a slightly more natural- and secure-looking version of the one in Salt Lake City, not far away. A spiritual glow even radiates from the arched entrance to its tunnels (at least in this promotional photo). But this vault holds way more folks than the spired House […]
Posted inRange
Meditational rant on the word “pristine”
This morning my local radio station aired an ad which referred to the natural environments of California’s North Coast. It was for an outdoor store; listeners were encouraged to enjoy our regions river, beaches and pristine mountain tops. This really gets my goat. I’ve been on most of those mountain tops over the past 35 […]
Posted inRange
New West, New Dust Bowl?
By Courtney White. Originally posted on NewWest.net, 4-28-2010 The apparent declining interest in the environment among Americans was much on my mind as I attended the 21st Annual Southern Plains conference in Lubbock, Texas, recently. Organized by the nonprofit Ogallala Commons, the event focused on a famous date in environmental history. No, it wasn’t the […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Wrangler and Little Cowboy
This week’s featured reader photo is one of the entries to our current photo contest, The People of the West. You can enter your photos that capture the West’s people to this contest until May 9, 2010. Check out our contests page for more information on this and other writing and photography contests celebrating HCN’s […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Grasshoppered!
“A metabolic wildfire”: That’s how entomologist-nature writer Jeffrey Lockwood of the University of Wyoming describes a grasshopper outbreak. At high densities — say 30 per square yard — a swarm can obliterate rangeland vegetation like “a maniac on a riding mower.” And with last year’s bumper crop of grasshoppers and the potential for a warm, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“The gas of life”
UTAHSome parents in Utah County are pressing their school district to stop spreading “false educational ideas,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. What might a false educational idea be? The notion that the word “democracy” defines our system of government. To parents who belong to a group called “Utah’s Republic,” which advocates a strict interpretation of […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
A Western state of mind
Best of the West 2009: New Stories from the Wide Side of the MissouriEdited by James Thomas and D. Seth Horton286 pages, softcover: $19.95.University of Texas Press, 2009. This impressive anthology of contemporary short fiction grounded in the American West showcases 18 stories from emerging writers and literary stars, selected from publications as diverse as […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
From Alaska to Paonia
Paonia, Colo., was a planned rest stop for visitors Helen Pohlig and Marilyn Rudolph, who were driving from Arizona to Helen’s home in St. Paul, Minn. “We purposefully chose a route that would take us through here,” said Helen, a lawyer and longtime subscriber. On their tour of HCN headquarters, she brought her dog Annie, […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Building a more effective environmental movement
The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar BearDouglas Bevington285 pages, softcover: $35. Island Press, 2009. In The Rebirth of Environmentalism, activist Douglas Bevington explores the relationship between large national organizations like the Sierra Club and small “grassroots biodiversity groups” like Northwest California’s Environmental Protection Information Center. Bevington describes the […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Crossing over
A city girl moves to the mountains for love
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Plus they never have to mow the lawn
The only thing missing in “Mobile Nation” was the real reason all those communal, neighborly, flag-waving, self-identified not-liberal RV settlers are so happy (HCN, 3/15/10). First, they don’t have to work any more. Second, there are no children around. And last, the government gives them a place to live for almost nothing. So much for […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Size matters?
I’m still laughing at one of the photos in “Mobile Nation” (HCN, 3/15/10)! Was that a bit of editorializing in the photo of the gentleman in his land-yacht watching the “male enhancement” commercial? Was the author trying to make some sort of Freudian connection between the size of a guy’s RV and his, uh … […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Skeptical of Calera
I have read several positive reports (including the one in HCN on March 15) about Calera Corporation’s presumed process that uses seawater or brine to sequester carbon dioxide, particularly from coal-fired power plants. Calera claims to produce a mixture of calcium and magnesium carbonates (limestone, dolomite, etc.) that can be used as a substitute for […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Viva la Archives!
Budget cuts threaten California water’s institutional memory
Posted inWotr
The burbling air show of migrating snow geese
I was visiting Choteau, Mont., with my friend, Bill, when a cheery checkout clerk said, “I bet you’re here for the geese.” Our blank looks confirmed our out-of-towner status. “Snow geese,” she said. “They’re migrating north again now.” She told us how plump Arctic birds gather by the thousands in the wheat fields near her […]
Posted inBlog
EJ for Earth Day
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try. – Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of […]
Posted inWotr
Warning: Water policy faces an age of limits
Change comes hard to Western water policy. The Prior Appropriation Doctrine, interstate compacts, groundwater law, the “law of the river” — all of these seem set in stone in the minds of the region’s policymakers. Of course, the West’s rivers aren’t bound by such a static existence. Indeed, they are changing in fundamental ways, opening […]
Posted inBlog
Out of tragedy, High Country News soldiers on
“1978, the year the Senate shortchanged Alaska?,” asked the cover headline of the Sept. 8 High Country News issue that year. The article outlined the Senate “horsetrading” over the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the bill that in 1980 ultimately created or expanded 15 of Alaska’s national parks and preserves. The article contained only […]