Debra Weyermann’s excavation of the hidden connections between the FLDS and mainstream LDS culture was very interesting. I wrote about this ambivalence and its reflection in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News and in a chapter of Saints Under Siege. Overall, that book is more sympathetic to the FLDS than Weyermann, and tends to […]
Communities
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Neutrality not needed
I am enormously proud of High Country News for writing about this growing menace in the U.S. I know many Mormons who would argue that their Church is not part of this fundamentalist sect, but their Church turns a blind eye, hence it is part of the problem. So many newspapers and television shows pander […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Once upon a time in a small town: A review of The Other Shoe
The Other ShoeMatt Pavelich320 pages, softcover: $16.95.Counterpoint, 2012. It’s a story as old as storytelling itself: A young man leaves his home in search of adventure before settling down to the responsibilities of adulthood. But in Matt Pavelich’s second novel, The Other Shoe, the story is less about the traveler and more about the aftermath […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Rambling horror stories
I was disappointed to see HCN join the long list of publications choosing to print rambling horror stories about polygamy in Utah and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In the future, I hope you will clearly distinguish facts about individual misconduct (i.e., Warren Jeffs’ pedophile conviction), from rumors and allegations about […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct
Bob Kuhn: Drawing on Instinct. Adam Duncan Harris352 pages, 302 color photos, softcover: $29.95University of Oklahoma Press, 2012 Wildlife artist Bob Kuhn passed away in 2007, leaving behind some of the finest paintings of wild animals ever created. Now, Adam Duncan Harris, curator of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyo., has collected […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Smokey Bear: From cute to buff, and in between
The icon’s many images changed over the years alongside the Forest Service’s changing attitudes toward wildfire.
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Spiritual Superfund sites
I have read many stories about villains without redeeming values, but never have I read one that made me want to wash my hands — no, endure a thorough toxic-chemical decontamination procedure — until slogging through the FLDS article. I often had to stop and shake my head to cast out the demons of the […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
A deep rot
Judges James Shumate and Dee Benson both had access to the rape tape mentioned in this article, solid evidence of a culture of sexual abuse in the FLDS. If they had been kindergarten teachers, they would be required to report the abuse to authorities, who would then be required to follow up. Instead, Judge Shumate […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
HCN: Preferred reading of cab drivers and geologists
We’ve had several summer visitors here at our headquarters in Paonia, Colo. From Reno, Nev., came subscriber Robert M. Martin, better known as Tobe, on a motorcycle trip to a medicine wheel site near Red Lodge, Wyo. Describing himself as a loyal fan of HCN, he added that he’d been a cab driver for 13 […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2012: The Hardest Climb
Hero worship: A review of Let the Birds Drink in Peace
Let the Birds Drink In PeaceRobert Garner McBrearty152 pages, softcover: $14.99.Conundrum Press, 2011. In Colorado writer Robert Garner McBrearty’s fresh and funny new story collection, Let the Birds Drink In Peace, a boy tells his mother he plans to do something great when he grows up. “Everybody feels like that when they’re young,” she replies. […]
Posted inWotr
Floods, fire … are locusts next?
There must be a fellow named Job living in Roundup, Mont. That would explain the latest punch to the belly of this small rural community. The first punch occurred a year ago this May, when deputies drove through neighborhoods along the Musselshell River, rousting people out of their beds for immediate evacuation. Rain had fallen […]
Posted inArticles
Following Dad down the road
I thank you for the music, and your stories of the road;I thank you for my freedom when it came my time to go;I thank you for your kindness, and the times that you got tough.And Papa, I don’t think I’ve said “I love you” near enough. –Dan Fogelberg, from his song “Leader of the […]
Posted inArticles
The West, in pictures
SAGE Magazine, a student-run environmental magazine at the Yale Forestry School, recently ran a photo essay of Western images submitted from students and people around the region. Here, we showcase a selection of these photos, which include beautiful wildlife photography and poignant illustrations of humans’ relationship to the natural world.
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
Tracking Ice Age people in Oregon
Wind-whipped rainclouds formed a low ceiling over the oceanic buttes and basins of south-central Oregon. The usually sundrenched sage darkened in the weather as I walked, my hood pulled up against the grass-bending tug of the northwest breeze. The air smelled richer than it usually does on the dry side of the Cascades, the sagebrush […]
Posted inWotr
“Tiananmen Sid” shakes up a small town
A version of this essay originally appeared on the science blog, the Last Word on Nothing. My rural western Colorado town of Paonia, population 1,500 on a good day, is in many ways a laboratory-scale model of the USA. We worship both community ties and unfettered independence from the federal government. We’re gossipy and private, inclusive […]
Posted inGoat
New podcast: Sun Tunnels, hitchhiking, the modern hobo
As loyal HCN readers know by now, we recently published our first-ever special travel issue, taking you to Montana’s lonely, overlooked but still spectacular eastern plains, time-traveling with Craig Childs in south-central Oregon, and to dams, nuclear test sites, renewable energy installations, and oil-themed cafes. The podcast is full of great ear candy: Journalist Scott Carrier […]
Posted inArticles
Rantcast: Bumper sticker sloganeering
Rants from the Hill are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in rural Nevada. They are posted at the beginning of each month at www.hcn.org. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, or through Feedburner if you use other podcast readers. Each month’s rant is also available in written form. Musical credits for Rantcast: Bumper sticker sloganeering, licensed under […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: I brake for Rants
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Rants from the Hill is now a podcast! Listen to an audio performance of this essay, here. You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or through Feedburner for use in another podcast reader. I’ve […]
Posted inGoat
Getting strange with land art
“I really like parts of it,” my editor wrote in response to a video I made about my travels to a few pieces of iconic Western land art, “and then other parts do feel a little too weird.” To the uninitiated this doesn’t sound so bad, but anyone familiar with editor-speak knows what it really […]
Posted inJune 25, 2012: Special travel issue
The Quileute Reservation copes with tourists brought by “Twilight”
Five Quileute boys emerge from a phalanx of drummers. Barefoot and bare-chested, they wear black cloaks and wolf headdresses, and dance, crouch and crawl within the center of a large circle. On the outskirts, women and girls move rhythmically to a chant and steady drumbeat, several of them sporting red and black capes emblazoned with […]