The Case of D.B. Cooper’s ParachuteWilliam L. Sullivan411 pages, paperback: $14.95.Navillus Press, 2012. In November 1971, a man traveling under the name “Dan Cooper” hijacked a Boeing 727 flying between Portland and Seattle, demanded $200,000 from the FBI, then parachuted from the plane into history, somewhere in the Northwestern wilds. The FBI has searched unsuccessfully […]
Communities
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Beatification of a sinner: a review of The Soledad Crucifixion
The Soledad CrucifixionNancy Wood336 pages, paperback: $21.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2012. In Nancy Wood’s newest novel, The Soledad Crucifixion, we find ourselves in Camposanto in the Territory of New Mexico, in the year 1897. Lorenzo Soledad has just been nailed to a cross. “On this, the last day of his life, the priest found […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Waiting with bated breath
We’re pleased to announce that High Country News has been nominated for the 2013 Utne Media Award in the Environmental Coverage category. (The other finalists are Grist, OnEarth and Resurgence/Ecologist.) Presented by Utne Reader, a digest of independent media, the awards “publicly celebrate the (media outlets) which consistently impress us with the high quality of […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Where’s the skepticism?
From reading “Gambling on rez tourism,” it seems HCN has become a voice for the gambling industry (3/18/13). After touting the wonderful financial benefits to be gained by building increasingly outlandish theme park-style casinos, this article spent scarcely a word on the negative impacts suffered by locals. There was one dismissive paragraph that began: “Putting aside some […]
Posted inWotr
Some Earth Firsters celebrate in Idaho two decades later
One year ago, an aging contingent of Earth Firsters plus some of their young’uns converged on the banks of the Salmon River in central Idaho. Sixty or more stalwarts met to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the so-called Cove-Mallard Campaign, a successful effort to prevent clear-cuts from replacing huge, old forests in […]
Posted inArticles
Researchers go to Utah to experience another planet: Mars
In March, photographer and science enthusiast Jim Urquhart ventured into the Utah desert to join a team of researchers at the Mars Desert Research Station. He came back with a collection of surreal images both extra-terrestrial and intriguing.
Posted inGoat
‘Port Gamble Predicament’ inches toward resolution
Last winter, I reported on the tangle of cultural and conservation challenges surrounding western Washington’s Port Gamble Bay, documenting how the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe is in the final stages of a 160-year-long faceoff with Pope Resources. Pope is the corporate stepchild of a logging company that built a mill town called Port Gamble in […]
Posted inWotr
A truth-teller gets punished in Montana
There’s an old college cheer: “Lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!” For former Montana Democratic Congressman Pat Williams, it seemed that no matter which way he leaned, he found himself smack in the middle of a controversy, one that had been building on the University of […]
Posted inArticles
Taking the park to the people
There will be no Fiesta Day this year at Saguaro National Park, a mountainous, cactus- and shrub-studded landscape surrounding Tucson. No mariachi band at the visitor’s center, no spread of tacos and enchiladas, no candy-filled pinatas for the kids to knock down. But the cancellation of the five-year running event, conceived by park officials as […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Trading fish for sewage
One-percenter travel Western “luxury hotels” are offering innovative high-end outdoor recreation experiences to attract wealthy customers, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colo., advertises an “ultimate adventure package” that includes “a three night stay in a Deluxe King room, a snowshoe tour (with lunch) and a twilight dog sledding excursion through […]
Posted inWotr
Helping the newest immigrants find their niche
Immigration reform is back in the news, and that’s a good thing for the estimated 11 million undocumented workers who help make our economy go. But where I live, in western Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, the issue isn’t just documentation; it’s also helping these 18,000 or so new residents become our neighbors and friends. Not […]
Posted inWotr
The white media kill Indians again and again
Recently, in a photo essay entitled, “Here’s what life is like on the notorious Wind River Indian Reservation,” the online Business Insider gave a tour of the sprawling central Wyoming home of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes. The essay delivered what it promised: a portrait of a place riddled with violence and addiction. A […]
Posted inWotr
Eco-terrorism and me
It was not really surprising but, well, disappointing to hear that I’d been called an “eco-terrorist” by one of my neighbors. The news was second-hand, of course, which somehow made it worse. Whoever pronounced the judgment, whether she or he, hadn’t bothered to tell me about it, but let it slip, off-hand, as if it […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Feral child
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert, published the first Monday of each month. Almost ten years ago, after my wife Eryn’s difficult and dangerous 22-hour labor, our first daughter, Hannah Virginia, made her reluctant entrance and began an unbroken run […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Pot pilgrims
Traveling in the clouds “Marijuana tourists” are expected to converge on Colorado and Washington, hoping to score without fear of handcuffs, because voters in those states legalized recreational pot last November. Arthur Frommer, founder of the famous Frommer’s Travel Guides, observes that “already, hotels in Seattle and Denver are reporting numerous requests for reservations by […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Volunteering provides a special experience in national parks
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. Big Bend National Park, Texas The Rio Grande is slow and muddy along the Mexican border, at the base of Santa Elena Canyon, on a sunny November day. My roommate, Alex Brachman –– like me, a fresh-out-of-college intern […]
Posted inGoat
Sovereignty and the Skywalk
At the Grand Canyon Skywalk, tourists can pay about $90 to shuffle along a horseshoe of glass that extends over the rim’s edge, wearing special booties to avoid scratching the surface as they peer 4,000 vertical feet down at the Colorado River. For such a snazzy feat of engineering, you would expect an equally fancy […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
A photographic journey through Montana’s vanished towns
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. We recommend that you use the Gallery View option to enjoy these photographs. When I arrived at the crossroads of Cartersville Road and Highway 446, I expected to photograph only a decrepit old schoolhouse; after all, I was […]
Posted inWotr
Of cars, booze, guns and angry mothers
Years ago, when I was much younger and dumber, I sometimes drove after drinking too much, occasionally even with a beer in hand. Once a state policeman stopped me leaving the small town of Joseph, Ore., and asked me to count backwards, touch my toes and walk a line. Fortunately, he knew me, and so […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2013: Second annual travel issue
Tribal casinos expand and go upscale
Note: This story is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. The Navajo Nation’s first casino opened in 2008 with a dramatic design — a simple, massive structure shaped like a tent. Prominently located between Interstate 40 and the red-rock cliffs just east of Gallup, N.M., it’s a shell […]