On the wall of our cow camp bunkhouse in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming hangs a little board on which somebody scratched the words: “If you’re lucky enough to be in the mountains, you’re lucky enough.” This week, I’m lucky enough to be among the West’s ranchers whose fall calendar includes gathering cattle from high […]
Communities
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Midnight in Montana
On a cold night that should have been warm, I pulled off the highway and headed for an historic gentleman’s club to hear the Doug Turman Sextet, a band of no particular renown. This was mining country in northwestern Montana, where unpredictable, bitter weather is a fact of life, outdoors and in. Next to me […]
Posted inGoat
Crypto-Jews real?
I first heard of the concept of Crypto-Jews back when I was a college student in Santa Fe during the late 1980s. New Mexico Hispanos had noticed their supposedly Catholic neighbors and relatives engaging in rituals that, it turned out, resembled Jewish religious practices. Some scholars — most notably Stanley Hordes, who was New Mexico’s […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Religion, politics and culture
Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his G-d … that thelegislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared their Legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2008: Prophets and politics
Scrimpfest in the West
The posh St. Regis Resort at Monarch Beach in Southern California offers pregnant couples a lavish package vacation called the “Last Hurrah.” But in late September, that moniker might have been better applied to the $440,000 weeklong retreat American International Group held there for some of its top sales agents — less than a week […]
Posted inWotr
Take a hike!
“I thought we’d go for a hike,” I told the boy I’m mentoring. “You know, look at stuff.” “How about we go to a movie?” he parried. “Or we could play electronic poker.” He’s not an unusual kid. There has been a major swing in his generation away from all things outdoors. The National Academy […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
On the Stegner trail
Wallace Stegner and the American WestPhilip L. Fradkin 323 pages, hardcover: $27.50.Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Like wanderers returning to the old hometown after a long time away, readers of Philip Fradkin’s new biography of Wallace Stegner will recognize familiar terrain as well as make fresh discoveries. Wallace Stegner and the American West arrives 15 […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
The invisible man
Name Ricardo Arriagada Age 30 Occupation Goat herder What herding means, day to day Four hours in the morning and two in the evening, filling water tanks and maintaining and moving the electric fence that keeps the goats corralled. The upside of living alone in a travel trailer on the Bay Area’s exurban fringes “Things […]
Posted inArticles
The fruits of their labor
A guard, a vineyard owner and prisoners talk about a new farm worker program
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Taking your life in your feet
Having lived in different parts of Arizona for many years, I would say that it is not just Phoenix that is unfriendly to pedestrians. It is the whole state. Arizona drivers think they own the road and have an inalienable right to speed. In many places, both big cities and small towns, roads have narrow […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2008: Back to the future
Readers weigh in on HCN’s redesign
Bravo. The latest issue looks terrific. HCN is always a great read, and your efforts to improve its look over the years are applauded. Peter CarrelsAberdeen, South Dakota *** I really appreciate the changes you have made to the “magazine.” As a former publisher myself, I know it is always a balance between cost and […]
Posted inGoat
Do you live in a small town?
We’ve been hearing a lot about small towns during the campaigns this year, ranging from Barack Obama’s comment about bitter residents to Sarah Palin’s service as a small-town mayor. That means it might be a good time to find out whether you live in one. Community size is a consideration, of course, but these factors […]
Posted inWotr
Nailing down the heart of Montana
Everyone in Lewistown, Mont., used to know that the heart of the state was under Mrs. Dockery’s kitchen sink. The prairie town’s claim to host Montana’s geographic center has been unabashedly celebrated, debated and defended since 1912. That was the year the Akins family moved into their stately home, newly built atop a hill on […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
When war came home
The Eleventh ManIvan Doig416 pages, hardcover: $26.Harcourt, 2008. In our collective memory, World War II happened “over there.” But of course it also happened here — to soldiers’ families, to women who went to work for the first time outside their homes, to the planters of victory gardens. The war hit home particularly hard in […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
Searching for something to search for
Roads to Quoz: An American MoseyWilliam Least Heat-Moon592 pages, hardcover: $27.99.Little, Brown and Company, 2008. It’s been a big year for aging adventurers; first, Rambo comes out of retirement, then Indiana Jones takes up another crusade. Now, road warrior William Least Heat-Moon returns to the nation’s back roads, seeking out the hidden histories, chitchat memoirs […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
Alexandra Fuller: A fine line between protest and profession
Listen to an exclusive, web-only interview with Alexandra Fuller. On a chilly Sunday morning in August, a group of protesters gathers outside the new Bureau of Land Management office at the north end of town. ExxonMobil has just announced the biggest quarterly profits in U.S. history, and heads are shaking unhappily over the rapid pace […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
Cheewa James: Chronicler of the ‘Tribe That Wouldn’t Die’
Modoc: The Tribe That Wouldn’t DieCheewa James352 pages, softcover: $19.95.Naturegraph, 2008. With song and prayer, soil and prairie grass, Native American author Cheewa James recently honored the memory of her long-lost great-great uncle. Frank Modoc left his Oklahoma reservation for a Quaker seminary over 120 years ago, fell victim to tuberculosis and never returned. While […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
River and Vision: Kim Barnes and the story of loss
To Willa Cather’s Great Plains, Ivan Doig’s Montana, and Cormac McCarthy’s borderlands, you can add Kim Barnes’s Clearwater River. Barnes’s first three books, the critically acclaimed memoirs In the Wilderness and Hungry for the World and her powerful debut novel, Finding Caruso, all take place along Idaho’s Clearwater River. Her soon-to-be-released second novel, A Country […]