A writer visits Alaska and finds a fishing culture in slow collapse, fading with its most important resource.
Communities
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
The pioneer of ruin
Amid a desolate mess in Cisco, Utah, a young woman resurrects a home.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
A toilet project; carpet-bombing trout; the ick factor
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
Latest: County campaign promotes monuments on the chopping block
San Juan County says ‘Make it Monumental’ while asking for exemption from the Antiquities Act.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
Photos: Above a Western waste land
A photo collection of 67 Superfund sites shows landscapes vandalized by mines and nuclear plants.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
Relittering: Take your trash and show it in the sun
Philosophy teaches us little more than how to confuse our settled opinions.
Posted inArticles
Why Jon Kyl was chosen to replace John McCain
Amid a reshuffling of Arizona’s political deck, the state’s governor makes a water-driven decision.
Posted inOctober 15, 2018: Nature Retreat
Conspiracy theories inspire vigilante justice in Tucson
How one man’s imagined discovery of a sex-trafficking camp in the Sonoran Desert gained life online — and in the real world.
Posted inArticles
‘Organic’ litter is not copacetic
Even orange peels be damned — don’t toss your food on the trail.
Posted inArticles
Indigenous peoples are decolonizing virtual worlds
Video games have a malicious history of inaccurate portrayals of Indigenous characters.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
As the West burns, a town fields its own amateur firefighters
The community of Dufur, Oregon, bands together to douse the flames.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Agricultural interests steer Colorado’s wildlife management
Sheep grazing in the state’s largest wilderness area could endanger a dwindling bighorn sheep herd.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
How beavers make the desert bloom
‘I’m always looking for ways to keep water here, and the beaver do it for free.’
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
We should all be more like ‘the bluebird man’
Meet Al Larsen, a citizen scientist with decades of meticulous records of the West’s bluebirds.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
The West’s atomic past, in opera halls
On stage and in Congress, Trinity test downwinders fight for recognition.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
Republicans tout hemp’s potential
The crop could be a lifeline for struggling agricultural communities.
Posted inArticles
Navajo voters will pick presidential candidates from among 18 hopefuls
This year’s election centers on clean water, purged voter rolls and a fading coal economy.
Posted inAugust 20, 2018: Where the West is Moving - and Why
Behind the iconic, dystopian images of the New Deal
A short-lived photography project captured rural poverty during the Great Depression.
Posted inAugust 20, 2018: Where the West is Moving - and Why
Laughter to cope with daily tragedies at the border
Luis Alberto Urrea’s new novel reflects on the family relationships that challenge and transcend the U.S.-Mexico border.
Posted inAugust 20, 2018: Where the West is Moving - and Why
Farmworkers face illness and death in the fields
‘The reality is that the machinery of growers is taken better care of than the lives of farmworkers.’