Kathy Beisner and her family used to take vacation trips in their camper. Though her husband Ron worked long hours for the Union Pacific railroad, making the run between Omaha and their hometown of North Platte, Neb., there was always time off to take the kids camping. No more. Since a 1996 merger with Southern […]
Communities
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Women pioneers
-We must elect more women – yes. But we must transform those structures to which we elect women to accomplish our goals, because present institutions will not do … In my heart I believe that women will change the nature of power rather than power change the nature of women.” * Bella Abzug, quoted in […]
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Newcomers battle over river resort
MOAB, Utah – Ten years ago, Karen Nelson arrived in southern Utah, drawn by redrock canyons, whitewater and a simpler way of life. A native of California, she moved to Castle Valley, a community of 50 homes nestled above the Colorado River; there, she made a living handcrafting furniture. A stretch of Route 128, called […]
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
Utah builds a dream trail
Late one afternoon, a trim, bearded University of Utah administrator climbs from a car in a foothill cul-de-sac 10 minutes from the busiest intersection in Salt Lake City. Rick Reese brims with energy as he strides off down a mountain path toward a perch with an astonishing view of the Salt Lake Valley. He stands […]
Posted inDecember 7, 1998: Vail and the road to a recreational empire
A paradise resettled and a community lost
In 1974, when Peter and Deedee Decker bought a rundown, 600-acre ranch six miles from the small, doomed, also rundown town of Ridgway, Colo. (the Bureau of Reclamation planned to bury it under a reservoir, but later relented), it was nowheresville. Despite the San Juan Mountains, which loom up almost as abruptly and beautifully as […]
Posted inNovember 23, 1998: A patchwork peace unravels
It’s a good day to be indigenous
From this moment on kindly refer to my family as “indigenous.” Or, if you prefer, “First Peoples.” With the discovery of what could be my long-lost European relative – Kennewick Man – it’s time to respect my elders. Kennewick Man, found in 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River near the town of the […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Subdivisions loom over the Sawtooths
The Forest Service has spent about $50 million over the last 25 years to protect the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho from the spread of subdivisions. Its work is about 90 percent complete – conservation easements protect most private land – but unless the Forest Service can work out a last-minute deal, rancher […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Spotted owls vs. jobs?
Does environmental protection really cause timber workers to lose their jobs? An article by University of Wisconsin sociologist Bill Freudenburg says no. His peer-reviewed study tracks employment numbers through three flashpoints of the modern environmental movement: 1964, when the Wilderness Act became law; the advent of Earth Day in 1970; and the northern spotted owl […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Endangered Mexico
Living in Mexico City – a place that has already suffered a kind of ecological collapse – has convinced me that the most crucial environmental struggle in the coming decades will be providing water, food and clean air, and ensuring basic human health in a world where resources are more and more limited. The most […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Even in the remote West, growth happens
STEHEKIN, Wash. – Tucked into a narrow mountain valley on the shore of Lake Chelan is a village so small it barely qualifies for the state map. A single phone serves its 70 residents, no roads lead here and only a ferry links Stehekin with the nearest grocery store in the small city of Chelan, […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A parade becomes a memorial after a murder
Laramie, Wyoming, wrestles with the hate in its midst when a gay student is beaten to death.
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Look who’s sprawling now
When Marc Heilson saw the Sierra Club’s rankings of the cities most afflicted by suburban sprawl, the Salt Lake City member called the national office and demanded, “How could you do this to us?” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. He was upset because The Dark Side of the American Dream: The Costs and Consequences of […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A new look at old pictures
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A tale of two – or three – Oregons
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Oregon thrives on a stereotype. Many outsiders imagine the state to be full of flannel-shirted outdoor enthusiasts, slogging through damp evergreen forests with a cup of coffee in one hand and a fishing rod in another. Images of ancient Douglas-firs and healthy, progressive citizens […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Oregon statistics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Annual per capita income in urban areas: $24,697 … in rural areas: $19,381 Percentage of Oregon adults with a high school degree: 91 Number of one-teacher schools in Oregon: 8 Estimated daily number of visitors to the 43,000-square-foot Powell’s Books in Portland: 6,000 Unemployment […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Citizens tame growth – their way
LIVINGSTON, Mont. – Paradise is a place with a population of one, says Charles Rahn. A rancher whose family has owned a 3,300-acre operation southeast of town for 50 years, Rahn says, “It’s only paradise for the first person who shows up.” So last year, Rahn led a successful petition drive to form a 66,000-acre […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Building a $100 million paradise in Montana’s Paradise Valley
EMIGRANT, Mont. – In the early 1900s, when Yellowstone Park Superintendent Horace Albright looked upon Paradise Valley, his neighbor to the north, he proclaimed: “If that area were in any other state, it would have been a national park.” Framed by mountains and split down the middle by the Yellowstone River, Paradise Valley has always […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
When government gets in growth’s way
BOISE, Idaho – Each morning, Gary Richardson looks out the front window of his foothills home and scans the skyline. Above the steel cranes towering over new high-rise office buildings, Richardson sees a yellow-brown haze hanging over the city. Below, a steady stream of cars creeps toward downtown. “I can see Los Angeles coming to […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A lifetime of service on the North Dakota plains
A slide show: Old pictures narrated in a yell by his daughter. Joe Sorkness is turning 97, and is deaf. He still lives in Jamestown, N.D., where he spends time piled in a chair, squinting at the Wall Street Journal through coke-bottle glasses that make his eyes look as big as eggs. “Here we are […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Zero Circles
ZERO CIRCLES Daniel Dancer’s “Zero Circles Project” sets out to end logging in the West’s public forests by illustrating the history of logging on these lands, as well as illuminating the wonders of the native forests that remain. He has trekked across forests of the West, forming circles of fire, people or wood – then […]