In January, our board of directors gathered by phone and Web to talk with staff about High Country News‘ progress over the last four months. There’s good news: Print and digital subscriptions are up 1,000 from last year, our coffers are bursting with end-of-year donations (thanks to all who contributed!), and our redesigned website should […]
Communities
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Hope and history
In The Light Of JusticeWalter Echo-Hawk325 pages, softcover: $19.95.Fulcrum Publishing, 2013. It’s unthinkable that kids in America would ever be allowed to play “slaves and masters,” writes Walter Echo-Hawk, but we don’t see anything wrong with Junior strapping on the trusty ol’ cap-shooters for a game of “cowboys and Indians.” Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee tribal member […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The legend behind Salvation Mountain
At the entrance to the self-proclaimed “last free place on earth” – Slab City, a squatter camp in California’s Imperial Valley – stands Salvation Mountain, its slopes painted with biblical quotations and its peak topped with a giant white cross. The candy-colored hill is just a few stories high, but to the drifters, dreamers and […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
A 100-pound pet tortoise wanders away, and cats are still killing birds.
Mishaps and mayhem from around the West.
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: IH8 DMV
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. I’ve always been impressed by vanity license plates—at least when they’re genuinely clever or funny—and have long thought that a little back bumper wit on my part might help my fellow Silver Hillbillies endure […]
Posted inWotr
77 years later, here comes pot
The history of marijuana is clouded by racism and muddled thinking.
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Montana escape
High and InsideRussell Rowland230 pages, softcover: $16.95Bangtail Press, 2013. Ex-Red Sox pitcher Pete Hurley comes to Bozeman to start a new life after a series of tragic mishaps that left him publicly shamed in Massachusetts. “Just as I was about to get over the incident that ended my baseball career,” he explains, “a drunken accident […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Terrorized by coyotes, denied a school lunch, and a controversial superbowl ad
UTAHIf you’re like us, you’ve occasionally fallen behind in paying your credit card or utility bills. And maybe you’ve had to face the consequences, perhaps nasty letters from a collection agency or a robo-caller with a vague accent demanding that you make an “arrangement.” But the folks at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
The first comic book with an all-Native American superhero team returns
Conversation with Jon Proudstar about the return of his comic book series, ‘Tribal Force.’
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Tracking America’s ice-age pioneers
In the Shadow of the Sabertooth: A Renegade Naturalist Considers Global Warming, the First Americans and the Terrible Beasts of the PleistoceneDouglas Peacock200 pages, paperback: $15.AK Press/ Counterpunch, 2013. Doug Peacock, author of Grizzly Years and Walking It Off, once walked point as a polar bear guard on an Arctic expedition, armed with only a […]
Posted inArticles
A city beyond the fog and under one roof
Photographs of isolation and community in Whittier, Alaska.
Posted inWotr
A rock star was my teacher
Re-encountering a science nut who instilled in me a love of wilderness.
Posted inWotr
I admit it: I’m an environmental hypocrite
Yup, I hang my clothes to dry – right after I burn fossil fuels to get them clean.
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Wilderness therapy redefines itself
But the irresponsible caregivers and tragedies of the past prove hard to shake.
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
An ode to snow
Laura Pritchett on the joy of snow.
Posted inGoat
Closed roads remind Silverton and the West of our dependence on transportation
Since Jan. 12, rocks have been raining down on Highway 550 on the north side of Red Mountain Pass in southwestern Colorado. Cold nights and warm days created a freeze/thaw cycle that pried loose a huge chunk of the rocky mountainside, which then broke into thousands of boulders. In order to stabilize the rocks to […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: The Great Basin Sea Monster
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. Last Saturday around noon I was still feeling desperate for more alone time when my daughters Hannah (age 10) and Caroline (age 7) asked if I was finally ready to play with them. I […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
HCN welcomes new interns
We’re delighted that stellar intern Krista Langlois is staying for another six months as our latest editorial fellow. And two new interns have arrived for a half-year of journalism boot camp. Christi Turner isn’t just thrilled to be out West – she’s pleased to be back in the United States. A Rhode Island native who […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Review: A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska
A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in AlaskaSergei Kan, 288 pages, hardcover: $39.95, University of Oklahoma Press, 2013 In A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska, ethnologist Sergei Kan brings 137 century-old images to light. Taken between 1890 and 1920 by amateur photographer Vincent Soboleff, they portray Tlingit […]