In the evening a strange thing happened; the 20 families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of a home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. — John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Long before Tom Joad and his family set out for […]
Communities
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
Let’s paint Wal-Marts
I was inspired by the report on public art in Salt Lake City (“Breaking Down Walls, With Art”), but have to ask, does not the medium — structures about to be demolished — reinforce the notion, at least subliminally, that art is worthless (HCN, 3/16 & 3/30/09)? So much of our everyday living environment is […]
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
The mythic Westerner
Your latest issue on “great ideas” from the West contained some instances of historical revisionism (HCN, 3/16 & 3/30/09). For one thing, far from having to “scratch out a living … competing against the likes of saber-toothed tigers, cave bears, dire wolves, mastodons, woolly mammoths and giant beavers,” the evidence suggests that “early Westerners” actually […]
Posted inGoat
Blue jeans and their critics
Doubtless you’ve heard of George Will, a prominent member of the chattering class. He wears a bow tie. And now this fop, with prominent sartorial affectations of his own, presumes to give us fashion advice. In a recent syndicated column, Will rants against blue jeans, also known as “Western wear.” Will borrows many of his […]
Posted inRay
Ex-congressman dies in Utah ATV crash
For years I’ve collected stories about people around the West who get killed or seriously hurt in off-road driving wrecks. I got interested in the ongoing tragedy when an admirable young man I knew crashed his machine in a popular ATV playground. He was a math teacher who inspired one of my kids. He went […]
Posted inArticles
A passion to protect
Glo Cunningham perseveres over three decades in Crested Butte
Posted inHeard Around the West
Back from the outback
Jim Stiles, the West’s curmudgeon-in-chief (“All the news that causes fits” is his motto), is back in southern Utah’s sandstone country — Australia, alas, did not work out. Stiles’ quirky Canyon Country Zephyr is back, too, though
Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
Why I ride the Greyhound
Bus passengers become citizens of the world.
Posted inHeard Around the West
Salmonid stanzas
Eleven years ago, a weekend tradition began in Astoria, Ore., the coastal town at the mouth of the Columbia River that once boasted scores of busy salmon canneries. It’s called the annual Fisher Poets Gathering, and this time participants in what one observer called “the blue-collar school of poetry” were given just 24 hours to […]
Posted inWotr
How one “girl ranger” helped save the Southwest
Ed Abbey once called her a “girl ranger,” and that’s what she was, the very first. Lynell Schalk began her federal career tracking grave robbers and pothunters in southeast Utah, and ended it catching pot growers in western Oregon. She broke through the sagebrush ceiling as the first female special agent in charge in the […]
Posted inGoat
Your turn, our turn
Today and tomorrow only, fellow intern Terray Sylvester and I will be guest blogging at the National Recreation & Parks Association Blog. The forum is called Y Become Involved? Basically, we’ll be discussing a big issue that public lands are facing: How to get young people involved in parks, recreation, and conservation activities. As with […]
Posted inGoat
It takes a village…
It’s National Library Week (April 12 – 18), and here in HCN‘s hometown of Paonia, Colo. we just celebrated the opening of our brand-new public library. After 5 years of hard work, the old, dingy, 3,700-square-foot library has been replaced by an 8,000-square-foot building with tall windows that let in plenty of light and a […]
Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
Last rites and forgotten landscapes
The murders of 12 young women, and what they tell us.
Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
Apparently Schwarzenegger wouldn’t agree
I found it interesting that “Tarp Nation” followed so closely on the heels of your article about Amtrak (HCN, 3/16 & 3/30/09). I often ride the Denver-Sacramento and Bakersfield-Sacramento routes when visiting family. Whenever the train enters the outskirts of any sizeable town, observant riders can see slum settlements at regular intervals along the tracks, […]
Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
“The officially sanctioned helpless”
Your story “Tarp Nation” seems to condone living in squalor, while trying to convince the reader that the plucky residents of these communities are creative, self-reliant and just happen to suffer because of the government’s harshness, the mainstream’s condemnation and society’s refusal to embrace the positive potential of this new social movement, “informal urbanism” (HCN, […]
Posted inArticles
Invading the silence
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Posted inApril 13, 2009: The Desert That Breaks Annie Proulx’s Heart
The desert that breaks Annie Proulx’s heart
Wyoming storyteller gives an unvarnished view of the Red Desert
Posted inHeard Around the West
Kraut, morels and moose
Writer Ari LeVaux went to an unusual swap meet in Missoula recently, only he called it a “meat swap.” Here were the rules: Any food that was acquired or “put away personally” was fair game. Deer steak, moose meat, dried morel mushrooms, organ-meat sausage, pickled peppers and sauerkraut were some of the food stuffs on […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Kills the Unconventional
Facebook just doesn’t get it: Native Americans don’t always have names like Dick Jones or Jane Smith. In fact, something like Robin Kills the Enemy is not only OK, it’s traditional. Not understanding that, Facebook disabled the site account of 28-year-old Robin Kills the Enemy, a Lakota woman from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South […]
Posted inGoat
The irony of home brew
At first glance, I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke, the front-page headline in the Denver Post which announced that “Utah to ease liquor laws.” But upon further reading, I discovered that it was no joke. As of July 1, Utah’s liquor laws will resemble those of most other states. You’ll be able […]