Red Rover, Deirdre McNamer’s fourth novel, begins with a gunshot. Maybe it’s an accident, or maybe it’s a suicide. Then again, perhaps it’s something more. The setting is Missoula, Mont., 1946, and the deceased is Aiden Tierney, a former FBI agent who’d been fighting a disease caught while chasing Nazis in Argentina. “Someone said the […]
Communities
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Looking forward, looking back
William Kittredge is a man peculiarly suited to write about the West. He comes from a family that used the land as Westerners did long ago, before everything began to run out. The son of a rancher in southeastern Oregon, Kittredge grew into his father’s job, tried to manage the land and the men, and […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Fall reading
We’ve pored over the latest from publishers and picked out a selection of books – by Western authors and/or on Western subjects – that we’d like to curl up with this fall. All have recently been released, or will be in the next few months; we’ve listed them here alphabetically by categories, according to the […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Literary trivia of the West
Think you know your Western literature? Answer 15 or more correctly and count yourself among the true Western literati. 1) Where were David Brower, Charles Park and John McPhee camping in the first section of Encounters with the Archdruid? 2) Which fictional fishing village in Washington was the site of Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial for allegedly […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Six Good Places
There’s a workaday village – or its ruins, anyway – hidden in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. I found it by following a feeling, one mapped onto my brain by ancient forces. Lately this map has begun guiding me in other places: Venice. Vancouver. Aix-en-Provence. Seattle. Even Portland, where I live. And it has […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
In Large and Sunlit Land
Here, in large and sunlit land … I will lay my hand in my neighbor’s hand And together we will atone For the set folly and the red breach And the black waste of it all. -Rudyard Kipling On New Year’s Eve 1987, in Niger, West Africa, I camped with friends at the foot […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Heard Around the West
OREGON Rick Kirschner, a naturopath who works with corporations to resolve staff conflicts, has been hired to train the trash-talking city council of Ashland, a city better known for hosting the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The therapist will have his work cut out for him. At the last meeting of the seven-member group, Councilman David Chapman […]
Posted inWotr
Truckers or skiers, take your pick
Any conversation about the West’s dangerous interstate highways might explore why more truckers don’t use I-90 or I-70, instead of Wyoming’s infamous I-80, which stretches across the southern part of the state. Given Interstate 80’s high altitude and snow-prone disposition, plus forecasts that traffic will increase to over 14,000 vehicles a day, everyone should be […]
Posted inWotr
The West is always wild to the young
The thing I remember most about winter in the mountains above a town in New Mexico called Las Vegas was the silence. At times, it was so quiet that, as a sheepherder from Montana pointed out, you could hear snowflakes slap against the pines. The sheepherder and I were fellow pilgrims whose lives intersected along […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2007: Cat Fight on the Border
RV Nation
We started the list on Interstate 80, somewhere east of Lovelock but most definitely before the blue-dome skies and dun hills around Dunphy. We passed them, one by one. Dutch Star. The Manor. Wanderer Wagon. The Contessa. The drivers looked down at us while their tailpipes coughed black. Southwind. Four Winds. Trade Winds. Sea Breeze. […]
Posted inOctober 15, 2007: Cat Fight on the Border
Heard Around the West
THE WEST If Glen Canyon Dam were a person, says Shaun McKinnon in the Arizona Republic, “it would surely suffer from low self-esteem.” There are several reasons: Environmentalists want to breach the dam to benefit native fish and bring back beaches, the writer Ed Abbey wrote about blowing it to smithereens in The Monkey Wrench […]
Posted inWotr
It’s never too late to go back to school
I just got home from my second job, but there’s no time to kick back. I only have enough time to grab a bite to eat and kiss my wife and son goodbye. Though I’m almost 30, I’m in high school again and can’t be late for class. I dropped out of high school midway […]
Posted inWotr
Hard lessons from Colorado’s concentration camp
On the southeastern plains of Colorado, on 560 acres of stunted elms, yuccas and broken concrete, you can find the remains of Colorado’s only concentration camp. Here, from 1942-1945, over 14,000 men, women and children were held against their will, patrolled by military police and surrounded by barbed wire and eight guard towers. Their crime? […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2007: Sheep v. Sheep
Spinner of yarns, maker of floats
Name: Black George Simmons Occupation: Volunteer ranger at the White Grass Ranger Station in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Unofficial duties: Making root beer floats for hikers, tallying mouse deaths, publishing The White Grass Morning Report newsletter Business White Grass Dating – For Ladies: “The Alice’s Restaurant of the Dating Services” Claim to fame: Chief […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2007: Sheep v. Sheep
What’s it like to live in the West?
Here and there when I am traveling people ask What’s it like to live in the West? And they always ask it with that capital W on West, you can really and truly hear it, And this just happened in Illinois, in the seething earthy redolent middle of nowhere, A young man asked it, and […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2007: Sheep v. Sheep
Heard Around the West
COLORADO Hikers passing any of 284 high mountain lakes in western Colorado this fall may get to see some flying fish. First, a small plane will appear, flying low. Then, “at precisely the correct time,” the pilot will open a bay and send a stream of fish-filled water into the lake. It’s a native fish-stocking […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Heard Around the West
MONTANA Fewer people may be heading for vacations in our national parks these days, but “glamping” – short for glamorous camping – is on the rise. Think of luxury tents that come equipped with Persian rugs and electricity for powering blow dryers. As for stinky outhouses – forget about it. The possibility of glamping convinced […]