Dear HCN, As a thrice-starved-out Montanan, I have a different take on mining than writer Heather Abel in your Dec. 22, 1997, issue. There are aspects of mining and its politics that High Country News should not have glossed over. A prime example is the so-called Clean Water Initiative, I-122. It failed in the 1996 […]
Essays
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
…but let’s not forget about the past
Dear HCN, In your Dec. 22, 1997, issue, I was quoted as saying, “What it might take is for some people to die before people start sitting up and saying, ‘Take that pollution out of rivers.’ “ I didn’t mean by that there will have to be violent confrontations, or even that people will immediately […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
The West from a snowmobile: a 50 million-acre theme park
It was fortunate that I could ski faster than my friend Mark Tokarski, because, like a 200-pound mosquito in a red stocking cap, he was pursuing me, belting out this incredibly annoying whining sound: “YEEEEENNNNGGGHHHH.” Foolishly, as we shushed along cross-country trails on the Bitterroot Divide, I had commented what a rare pleasure it was […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
A court deems a lake worthy of water
Note: This essay accompanies this issue’s feature story. The water developers of Los Angeles and their lawyers knew from the first paragraph that they were in trouble. Court opinions about Western water invariably carried a pragmatic, detached, utilitarian tone. This case was supposed to be about the needs of a thriving but thirsty metropolis – […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
How the far right spreads its ‘wacky’ ideas
I’m standing at a podium in the back room of the Elks Lodge in Libby, Mont., in front of about 40 Democrats. The event is their annual Jefferson-Jackson Day fund-raising dinner. I’ve been invited to speak at several of these things over the last several months, and it occurs to me that somewhere along the […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Saying goodbye to the bear
Last winter, under pressure from the elements, bison left Yellowstone National Park in search of a bite to eat, and were killed. As a professional grizzly bear watcher, I had heard the story many times before. The problem is quite simple. U.S. Army General Phil Sheridan recognized it at the beginning of the park’s creation, […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
How an eco-logger views his work
Not many loggers have a degree in creative writing. Fewer serve on the board of a state wilderness association or argue philosophy with timber giants like Plum Creek in northwest Montana. Bob Love does. He’s been called the “eco-logger” by some, the “Una-Logger” by others, and these days he runs a one-man selective logging business. […]
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Luftwaffe, go home
The noise began as an explosion, then quickly matured into the scream of engines. Racing across the sky, provenance obscured by speed, the jet rocketed away, leaving the blast echoing in my skull like a loose tire iron. Count me among the 13 percent of residents in areas of rural New Mexico, Texas and Arizona […]
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Grizzlies and the male animal
The crowd of several hundred area residents who gathered in a school auditorium in Salmon, Idaho, recently was almost totally united in its opposition to the proposal. No one wanted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to introduce some 25 subadult grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the Idaho-Montana border over a several year […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
It’s time for the public to pay up
Throughout the West, the forests are alive with the sound of bellyaching. This time it’s not loggers or ranchers who are at war with federal land-management policies, but rather backpackers, birdwatchers and anglers. They want federal lands managed more for recreation and wildlife, but they aren’t willing to pay for it. Take, for example, the […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Greens, as usual, are easy to bait
Environmentalists, the criticism goes, are naive about economics. I think that’s generous. Most of us in the movement work for substandard wages because we believe in the cause. Even worse, we expect others to make similar sacrifices, preserving rivers, forests and wildlife regardless of the consequences to struggling families or communities. That’s one reason why […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
The Mountain West: A Republican Fabrication
How Republican is the Mountain West? That’s sort of like asking, “How wet is the ocean?” Many readers of High Country News weren’t even born in 1948, the last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried every one of the eight states in the Mountain West – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Excerpts from a New West dictionary
cal*i*for*ni*an (kal’ u forn’ yun) n. 1. resident of the state of California. 2. imprudent spender single-handedly responsible for inflated values of real property. [earlier form: Texan] en*dan*gered spe*cies (en dan’ grd spe’ sez) n. 1. every group that has had a representative address a public hearing in the West: “Ranchers, miners, etc.: We’re the […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
The buffalo underground: Now it can be told
WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. – Shortly after last New Year’s Day, Vickie Dyar’s cat started acting strangely. When the gift-store owner stepped into the frigid air to investigate, she saw deep tracks leading through the deep snow toward a small barn near the house. As Dyar walked toward the barn, a bison, its magnificent black head […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Will Wyoming warm to wolves?
The second week of April is a brutal time to drive through Wyoming; windblown blizzards coat everything with ice. But that’s what 70 people in Cheyenne did last spring to view my photographic safari about the return of wolves to Wyoming and Montana. I was prepared for more than brutal weather. While antagonism toward wolves […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Keep America green: Hire an illegal alien
From 1975 to 1987, I inspected tree planting in the Klamath National Forest on the Oregon-California border. So I had to laugh a while ago at a quote in a newspaper story about illegal aliens apprehended while planting trees in the Boise National Forest here in Idaho. “The Forest Service does not knowingly hire contractors […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
An Idaho daily breaches the Northwest’s silence over tearing down dams
The Idaho Statesman likes to think its editorials are felt far beyond the modestly populated Boise metropolitan area in southwestern Idaho where the paper is headquartered. We were never sure just how far, however, until recently. That’s when the six members of the editorial board, which includes the publisher, top editors and a community representative, […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
The West may not be literary, but it’s littered with reading matter
Along with watching birds on my long bicycle trips between several Western states and California, I developed a fascination with roadside signs. Among the most common were the hand-painted advertisements posted in many a rural driveway. People were selling rabbits, nightcrawlers, boxer pups, Fuller brushes, RV repairs, stud service, plants, dolls, mattresses – you name […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
How the writer learned that he is not very spiritual
My wife and I had just finished hiking Brims Mesa outside of Sedona, Ariz., when we spotted a woman at the trailhead wearing a purple velvet, or velour, dress that hung loosely to her bare ankles. In her right hand she held a hawk feather, and around her neck dangled a leather “medicine bag.” She […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
On being wrong
Years ago, I wrote a little essay that appeared in The Sun. The title of the essay was “Being Wrong.” I wrote about all the mistakes I had made in my life. I said I was tired of looking back and feeling embarrassed and angry with myself for having been so wrong in the past. […]