ANACONDA, Mont. – The gravestones stand in ranks on the hills above this old smelter town, providing hard statistics. By the 1890s, when Anaconda was only a few years old, people of European descent were already dying here. McGinty, Deslauriers, Nitschke, Dadasovich and other names of the dead indicate epic journeys. One stone, for the […]
Essays
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
At war with a bunch of mice: Confessions of an ex-pacifist
Six years ago I bought a cabin in the mountains of eastern California. Though my fortunes rise and fall, almost every night I’ve thanked the millions of stars that I could look to the high crests and hear birdsong in the Jeffrey pines. A year ago my illusion of haven fell apart. One of my […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
Foreman finds hope amid ecological rubble
Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson should thank their stars that Dave Foreman chose to become a conservation preacher rather than a religious preacher. Otherwise, they would be out of jobs. Foreman, who said his family had expected him to become a Bible-thumper, traces his unique ministry back to the doomsday preaching of Cassandra, and he […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Boise pushes on its river, and the river shoves back
The “New West” has settled along the banks of the Boise River. An urge to live and work near rushing water has transformed a braided, meandering waterway, once cloaked in nothing more than cottonwoods and rural attitudes, into an urban amenity flanked by office parks, pubs and a forest of pricey homes. Think of riverfront […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
Lessons from a rampaging river
It’s obvious from news photos that the city of Grand Forks, N.D., will never be the same after this year’s cataclysmic flood and fire. What’s not so obvious in the scenes of washed-out and burned-out buildings is that the landscape is not all that has changed. Mike Jacobs, editor of the Grand Forks Herald, calls […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Moving in, as the snow moves on
KELLY, Wyo. – The robins arrive first, though some years it’s mountain bluebirds, with snow still on the ground at the end of March and more to come. Much more. They remind me of how we all announce ourselves as creatures of home. This is true, at least, of the creatures with whom I share […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Uh, oh – the glaciers are growing
Whitefish, Mont. – Bundled against the driving snow of another January blizzard, the regulars stomped into the Buffalo Cafe for their morning brew. The Flathead Valley was on the verge of exceeding the annual snowfall record with almost three winter months to go. The steamy cafe buzzed with chatter about aching backs, collapsed roofs and […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Some hook and bullet magazines hit the mark
The key to understanding outdoor magazines – which I both read and write for – is that they exist to sell advertising. This is neither an indictment nor something unique: Virtually all periodicals except nonprofits depend on ad sales for their survival. The advantage of a large circulation comes not from income, but as bait […]
Posted inApril 28, 1997: Evangelical Christians preach a green gospel
Coyote vigils
At 3 on a December morning in a high cold mountain valley I am crunching through deep snow on my way to a monastery chapel. It is so cold that the air crackles and burns; the hairs in my nose are icicles, biting me as I breathe. I am swathed in so many layers of […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Yellowstone’s ‘geyser guy’ was one of the park’s best friends
In the spray of Old Faithful, in the shimmer of heat within Yellowstone’s turquoise pools, in the steam rolling through the pines, Rick Hutchinson looks back at us. Rick was Yellowstone’s geyser guy, a geologist who was the foremost authority on the world’s foremost collection of geysers and hot springs. I say “was.” But I […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
What happens when two tree-huggers meet a tentful of hunters
Last November, I joined Nez Perce tribal biologist Timm Kaminski on one of his difficult “hunter education” trips into the southern Bitterroots on the Idaho-Montana border. His job: to walk into tents of heavily armed hunters and tell them about the possibility of wolves showing up in the woods. He has to ask hunters questions […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Venison is not an option
Mule deer don’t just wander through the Boulder, Colo., neighborhood where I live. They drop fawns in our backyards. They browse on almost everything. In Table Mesa, surrounded by open space, it’s a love-it-or-leave-it situation. Don’t like Odocoileus hemionus eating your garden? The solution is simple: move. Venison is not an option. When I moved […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
When it’s 25 below and dropping
I was playing poker the other day with a bunch of guys, mostly middle-aged and older, mostly native Montanans like myself. Every so often somebody would put on an extra coat, go outside and start the car, come back to play a few hands, then bundle up and turn the engine off. Nobody found this […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Green hate in the land of enchantment
A hate movement has grown up in northern New Mexico, fueled by decades of Forest Service mismanagement and sensational media coverage (HCN, 12/25/95). It has fostered an unusual alliance across racial barriers to oppose conservation on federal lands. The political alignment became visible more than a year ago during a Christmas candlelight demonstration organized by […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
The shotgun wedding of tourism and public lands
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Nev. – They came from across the country and around the West to celebrate the shotgun wedding of tourism and the public lands. The potential Lords of the New West, the bosses of tourism agencies and industry lobbying groups, and the managers of federal lands and parks, arrived in limousines and chartered […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
Denying the warts on the West’s service economy
Once upon a time, in 18th-century France, the king and his court had pet economists known as “physiocrats.” The nobility liked their physiocrats very much. Not only did they bow and scrape in a very respectful way, but they told the king and counts and dukes that all wealth comes from the ground. The aristocracy […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Trying to think the good thoughts about ATVs
An elk hunter dislikes ORVs despite their convenience because they make the country too small.
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Stripmining history and culture for dollars
Who owns Crazy Horse? Were the great Oglala warrior still alive, there would be no question: Crazy Horse, who helped Sitting Bull orchestrate Custer’s last stand, was not the owning kind. But 120 years after his death, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has affirmed a New York brewery’s right to market “Original Crazy Horse Malt […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
If politics is a baseball game, I don’t even own a bat
After each election I become the fearful character in a Gary Larson cartoon, peering through window slats to discover that neighboring houses are occupied by large canines, drooling spittle and looking hungrily in my direction. After 12 elections, I ought to have more stomach for the results, but each biennium comes as fresh horror. The […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Shake-up: Greens inside the Beltway
WASHINGTON, D.C. – When the news leaked that Bill Meadows had been chosen to head The Wilderness Society, everyone called friends to commiserate. All anyone knew about Meadows was that “III” followed his name and he had raised $92 million for the Sierra Club. “He’s a fund raiser,” was the usual comment, followed by laments […]