THE WESTOnce again, Hollywood has chosen mythmaking over reality in its portrayal of predators, in this case, Alaskan wolves, in a new movie called The Grey. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the “man-versus-beast thriller” pits stranded oilfield roughnecks against extreme cold, hunger and a pack of starving wolves; when carnage erupts, “the wolves are usually […]
Communities
Posted inRange
Richard Hugo, revisited
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Annela Rova The celebrated American poet Richard Hugo chose to focus on […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
A life measured in cordwood: A review of Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and Men
Into the Heat: My Love Affair with Trees, Fire, Saws and MenCindy Bellinger159 pages, softcover: $14.95.High-Lonesome Books, 2011. What does it mean for one woman to take an active, eventful life and root it ever more deeply in one spot, settling down in the mountain foothills where a nearby pine forest becomes a close companion, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Bucking the stereotypes: A review of West of 98
West of 98: Living and Writing the New American WestEdited by Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland380 pages, softcover: $21.95.University of Texas Press, 2011. Any anthology is a collage, a series of snapshots imperfectly melded into one composition. That’s why we read them: They allow us to look at a topic from a variety of angles, […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Craig Childs is HCN’s latest contributing editor
We’re excited to announce that author Craig Childs has just joined our list of contributing editors. Many of you are already fans of Craig’s work, which appears regularly in these pages and in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, Outside and Orion. His writing focuses on natural sciences, archaeology and his remarkable […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Photojournalist Lisa Hamilton explores rural California
For her project, Real Rural, photojournalist Lisa Hamilton traveled throughout California, interviewing and photographing scores of rural people.
Posted inRange
Churches use punk culture to reach Montana teens
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Billie Loewen It’s an especially cold December night, with the kind of […]
Posted inWotr
West to East, and a world away
A few months ago, after 20 years, I moved from the West to the East, reluctantly, carting a truckload of artifacts and memories, literal stones and actual stories, each one a product of the forests, mountains or deserts of Bend, Ore., Missoula, Mont., Argenta, British Columbia, Canada, and beyond. My little 4-cylinder truck labored under […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Winning the wildfire jackpot
THE WESTMany of us harbor a sneaking suspicion that Westerners aren’t quite real to D.C. Beltway officials, particularly to the Easterners in their employ. The habitat of these politically engaged men and women so close to power is usually a crowded room where they toil from morning to night, and so the poor wretches rarely […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Following the Oregon Trail, digitally and on foot
As a kid, I loved playing Oregon Trail, a popular and notoriously difficult computer game in which avatars inevitably drown, run out of water or die of dysentery en route from Missouri to the Promised Land at the Pacific’s edge. An imaginative child, I took my virtual pioneer adventures offscreen, loading up my small red […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Anecdote of the Jeep
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. 1919 was a pretty decent year, all in all. The Grand Canyon received protection as a national park, the 19th Amendment finally gave women the vote, the world witnessed the end of the war […]
Posted inGoat
Seal Stories from the Pribilof, middle of everywhere
Stiff winds blow over the treeless islands of St. Paul and St. George, over 300 miles from mainland Alaska. The Pribilof Islands, breeding grounds to the northern fur seal in the middle of the Bering Sea, seem unlikely actors in world events. “People come and say, ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere,’” says Aquilina Lestenkof, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Ready-made solar houses
COLORADO AND THE WESTWouldn’t it be grand if you could live in a house that never racked up a single electric bill? Some homeowners have pursued that goal by retrofitting their homes with solar or wind power, though it’s not easy to achieve the wondrous state of “net-zero” — defined as any building that produces […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
A forbidden road trip: A review of Lamb
LambBonnie Nadzam275 pages, softcover: $15.95.Other Press, 2011. After his marriage dissolves over an affair with a coworker and his father dies, David Lamb drives to a parking lot near his Chicago home to think. “Nothing before him but the filthy street and bright signs announcing the limits of his world: Transmission Masters and Drive Time […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
A transplant at home in rural Utah
I happen to live in a tiny Utah town, population approximately 175, with plenty of “move-ins.” I’ve yet to meet a “move-in” who wants to create massive changes there (HCN, 12/16/11 & 1/9/12, “Stranger in these parts”). In fact, the majority of them moved there precisely for what the place offers: community, beauty, and a […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
High Country News welcomes new interns
Two new editorial interns just joined us for six months of “journalism boot camp” at our Paonia, Colo., office. Danielle Venton was born in Petaluma, Calif. Early backpacking trips sparked her curiosity about the natural world, which eventually led her to study biology at Humboldt State University. Unlike her classmates, Danielle couldn’t settle on just […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Searching for the truth about American Indians: A review of All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)
All Indians Do Not Live In Teepees (or Casinos)Catherine C. Robbins408 pages, softcover: $26.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2011. “This is a personal book,” Catherine C. Robbins writes in the preface to All Indians Do Not Live In Teepees (or Casinos), a collection of her journalistic essays. Robbins is not Indian, but she is also “not […]
Posted inRange
Arizona turns 100
Now that February has arrived, I’d like to wish everyone a happy and festive Arizona Centennial! But wait – you say you didn’t realize that Arizona became a state one hundred years ago, on February 14th, 1912? Well, I’m not surprised. What with the recession, most of the publicity and celebrations had to be scaled […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Residents of Montana’s High Plains are angry – but not at the real threats
I was born in eastern Montana, on a dusty stretch of nearly riverless high plains north of the Bull Mountains. I came of age there, in a country that has never not been true frontier, in the late ’80s — during the farm crisis, that notoriously bad old time in rural America. In much of […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
The warming properties of greenbacks
WASHINGTONMoney may not buy you happiness, but burning it might help keep you from freezing to death. A snowshoer who became lost in a blizzard on Mount Rainier told The Seattle Times that he survived by digging a snow tunnel and then burning everything he could find, from socks and Band-Aids to his toothbrush “and […]