Robert Michael Pyle has synthesized three decades of life in a small community in southwest Washington into this exquisite portrait of place. Each chapter of Sky Time in Gray’s River represents a month of the year in Gray’s River Valley; each brims with vivid moments and vignettes. Pyle, a renowned butterfly expert, has 14 books […]
Communities
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
The aroma of Tacoma
My husband grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Whenever we’d go back to visit the cloudy skies of Seattle or Portland, he’d ask, “Can you picture us living here?” and I would try. But I always felt anxious. He seemed so happy, just posing the question, that I put my trepidation down to that arthritis […]
Posted inWotr
Our public lands should reflect white, black and brown
As a black park ranger, I’m often asked why more minorities don’t visit national parks or participate more in outdoor activities. That’s a short question with a long answer, and one part of it involves the perpetuation of historical inaccuracy, since the victors get to write what passes for history as portrayed in movies and […]
Posted inWotr
Yes, we are all tourons
“How far is it to Harts Pass?” a tourist couple once asked me. I told them it was about 20 miles. “How far is it back?” they asked. That natural selection has not rendered tourists extinct seems a mystery that defies evolution. And if you believe God created tourists, you’ve probably wondered, “What was He […]
Posted inWotr
The memory of a mountain
A long time ago, I climbed a mountain with my mother. It was back in the early ’80s, when she was only slightly older than I am now — hard for me to believe, even though I’ve done the math and know it’s true. The mountain was Pikes Peak in Colorado. We climbed it from […]
Posted inWotr
The backyard cat whisperer
I am on all fours in a gravel path in my yard, tapping the ground with one hand, holding a leash with the other.I am whispering insistently.The summer sun burns my neck.Seen from the road, through stalks of dead cheatgrass, my butt would appear to hover, a blue-jeans moon at noon. “Shack-le-ton.Shack-le-ton!SHACK-le-ton.” Is anyone watching? […]
Posted inWotr
Under Las Vegas
The catacombs of ancient Rome served as houses of worship for Jews and Christians. In the early 1800s, the sewers of Paris yielded gold, jewels and relics of the revolution. Closer to home, thousands of people lived in the subway and train tunnels of New York City in the 1980s and ‘90s. Beneath the neon, […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Worth the work
NAME: Jeremias Pink AGE: 24 VOCATION: Graphic designer, nonprofit organizer, bicycle mechanic HOME BASE: Pocatello, Idaho KNOWN FOR: Giving away bicycles HE’S READING: Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing by anthropologist Michael Taussig FAVORITE FOOD: “I eat what I’m told.” HE SAYS: “Whether or not we’re accomplishing our mission […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
The great American road trip
Long road trips are a guilty pleasure in the era of climate change. It’s one thing to recycle, buy organic, and switch light bulbs, but to give up the car altogether? Travel feels essential to an American’s experience of the world, and for most of us, travel means driving. Author W. Scott Olsen — who […]
Posted inWotr
A cowboy girl still has the power to shock
When Caroline Lockhart wrote a novel about a notorious rustler in 1911, it ended with him thrown into a pit of rattlesnakes. Decades later, she encountered a rustler in real life and decided to have a hit man bump him off. Her contract on the life of the rustler is proving the most controversial part […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Heard Around the West
IDAHO What you surely don’t need when you show up for work is two men walking into your office carrying a goat. Then one says cheerily: “Congratulations, you’ve been goated!” True, the goat is a mini-breed, no bigger than a dog, but it does poop (one goat-handler totes a handy pooper-scooper) and it is, after […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Lost in the Land of the Ugly Stepsister
Here is a name for it: the Ugly Stepsister Syndrome. In a state known for its beauty and grandeur, its last best place-ness, its Big Sky Country appeal, there exists a place where the citizens feel shortchanged, second-best, S.O.L. in the great economic scheme of things that is the New West. And they want to […]
Posted inWotr
Open minds and free expression – what a rare treat!
I was nervous. Students don’t understand that teachers are often as anxious as they are the first time a class meets. It had been more than 20 years since I’d taught in a college classroom. I felt rusty and insecure. My biggest fear? That I’d face a group of freshmen with their arms crossed and […]
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Extreme commuters are maybe even you and me
This spring was a kind of religious experience. A couple of hot days in May, followed by an entire Memorial Day weekend of rain. On a hike, we looked over rolling green foothills and were moved to sing “Danny Boy” melodramatically, into the fierce wind. The lilacs this year were a purple-white fireworks show, and […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
Impressions of Pueblo prehistory
Every branch of science needs its voice — the popular writer who makes research come alive, in ways that scientists rarely manage. With House of Rain, Craig Childs lays claim to be the voice of Southwestern archaeology. Moving across the region, he conjures up sites, scientists, and the prehistoric people of the Colorado Plateau. Those […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
John Nichols and his 19th miracle
NAME: John Nichols VOCATION: Author of 19 books offiction and nonfiction, including The Milagro Beanfield War, The Sterile Cuckoo, Conjugal Bliss, The Voice of the Butterfly and If Mountains Die. AGE: 66 Thoughts on Death and THE Afterlife “You just die. It’s over, Rover.” Advice: “Part of surviving is not to stress yourself out and […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
Epiphanies on the range
They are polite, eager, inquisitive. I can’t decide if they make me feel 20 years younger or exhausted. Every teacher should be so lucky. I’m driving around the West with 21 students from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., where I teach, and we’ve talked to ranchers and environmentalists, looked at forests that have been […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
Heard Around the West
COLORADO Decked in virginal veils and jaunty bowties, 178 canine couples walked down the aisle recently in Littleton, Colo., though we’re still wondering how a ring fits over a toe that sports a claw. The mock nuptials weren’t just a dotty indulgence for dog lovers, reports the Denver Post. “Bow Wow Vows” raised over $3,000 […]
Posted inWotr
Paint it red and call it fine Western dining
Here in the Western lands, there is said to be a cuisine called Tex-Mex, though some claim that Rocky Mountain oysters is the true Western soul food. Personally, I don’t think a bull’s scrotum is going to appear on the great tables of the world. I have searched for our authentic style and think I […]
Posted inWotr
Rhubarb: It tastes like spring
One cup flour. Spring tulips splashed across yards as I morphed into an alley-cruising backyard spy, desperate to find a rhubarb patch. I’d all but given up when I spied a plot of the familiar elephant ear leaves. Three-quarter cup uncooked oatmeal (not instant.) Ding-dong. A skinny boomer in shorts answered the door, as I […]