When I got married, my husband was in the midst of a slide into bipolar disorder that would last for years, nearly kill us both, and ultimately end our marriage. I hadn’t told many people about what was going on. Nor had I thought to reconsider my decision to get married. We had already been […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
Bootstrapping in Roundup
The morning of May 26, the town of Roundup in central Montana became separated from the world. The Musselshell River, normally a lazy brown trickle, had been transformed overnight into a raging monster a half-mile wide that swept away everything in its path. In the wee hours, the sheriff’s department received word from 20 miles […]
Posted inWotr
The return of the Lords of Yesterday
A couple of decades ago, the West’s conservationists dreamed a lovely dream: The region’s traditional extractive industry base, which had taken such a huge environmental toll, would soon make way for a kinder, gentler economy based on protecting the land for recreation and tourism. And the dream seemed on the verge of coming true; during […]
Posted inWotr
Ice matters
“Now I know a glacier,” said Leon, a playwright from New York. We sat across from each other in front of a small driftwood fire, the cool Alaskan evening wrapping us in darkness. Leon had just spent five days with me as an artist-in-residence in the wilderness area where I work. Each day, our near […]
Posted inExtreme green
Suckling responds: Cashing in? Nope, just saving species every day
Note: This is a response to a Writers on the Range column by Ted Williams, headlined “Extreme Green.” Industry-funded zealots are angling to prevent nonprofits from protecting veterans, children, workers and the environment. With the absurd argument that nonprofits are getting rich by making the government follow its own laws, they want to ensure that […]
Posted inArticles
In search of diversity in our national parks
In the crowd of tourists on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, the Griffin family immediately caught my eye. Allen, Hashmareen and their two small boys were surrounded by thousands of other visitors, but the Griffins stood out because they were among only a handful of African-Americans I encountered in my travels. People of […]
Posted inWotr
Is wildfire always a question of when?
Even before Arizona Sen. John McCain told the media that illegal immigrants were burning down the forests of Arizona, some local ranchers had begun spreading the same rumor. Then as the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona burned, a different kind of smoke rose from my email inbox: “It’s those damn illegals, ya know.” “They found […]
Posted inWotr
The gift of runoff in a wet season
One recent evening, a friend and I walked along a mountain creek in central Colorado that only a few hours before had been covered with snow. Boulders once visible had been replaced by froth and waves, and the water velocity was so great that the middle of the creek was a foot higher than its […]
Posted inWotr
Shifting gears to a brave new world of Lycra
After riding for 25 years atop my old English 10-speed with the skinny steel wheels and tape-wrapped handlebars, I finally bought one of those fancy, 21-speed mountain bikes. When I got the new bike home — they don’t call them bicycles anymore — and leaned it against the wall in my garage — where did […]
Posted inWotr
Tuning out and finding local
Global thinking has its good points; it may broaden our viewpoints or remind us that we could be Haitians or Tunisians. But in the West, the most visible representatives of the global economy are the super-stores where forklifts rearrange cartons of goods made somewhere besides America. Here in South Dakota, we specialize in local experiences, […]
Posted inWotr
A fire lookout in a wilderness speaks of our past
If monster mansions in Jackson, Wyo., or Sun Valley, Idaho, can boast million-dollar views, what’s a historic cabin in Washington’s Glacier Peak Wilderness worth? From this cabin that used to be a wildfire lookout, you can see a sea of summits, glaciers, a volcano and hidden lakes mostly surrounded by uncut forests. Green Mountain Lookout, […]
Posted inWotr
Why the Southwest is burning
No big thing happens for just one reason. This season’s fires, cutting broad swaths across the Southwest, result from the convergence of three powerful forces: climatic drought, institutional tunnel vision, and old-fashioned human frailty. On the face of it, the drought is simple: There hasn’t been much rain or snow across much of the region, […]
Posted inWotr
The adolescent West
Logan, Utah, isn’t too anything. It’s not too big or too small, but it’s also not just right. Like many Western towns and small cities of about 50,000 people, it’s as confused as a hormonally challenged adolescent. Policy moods swing wildly between pro-development mayors and ones that want to go back to family-friendly neighborhoods. We want […]
Posted inWotr
Bullies get their way in New Mexico’s wolf recovery program
There’s a sign near my house that reads, “Don’t just stand there, Stop Bullying!” I remember being teased by the cool girls in middle school during the 1980s. Having survived adolescence, I naively assumed that pint-sized tormenters mature before reaching adulthood. But not always: Adult bullies employing the tactics of gossip, misinformation and fear have […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
River Town
I came to Flagstaff, Ariz., to run her river. The river. Flagstaff is a river town, although you’d never know it at first glance. The closest stream that flows year-round is Oak Creek, 30 miles to the south near Sedona. As the crow flies, Flagstaff is 75 miles and 5,000 vertical feet from the Colorado […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Encountering a California condor takes one writer back in time
“There they are!” shouts one of my hiking companions on this perfect January day, unseasonably warm even for California. I squint toward the horizon, past the crooked ginger-tinted rock spires and slouching gray pines, but see only sky, awash in the glare of the midday sun. Finally, I spot a dozen or so tiny black […]
Posted inWotr
ORV riding needs on-the-ground enforcement
Not long ago, the Glamis off-road recreation area in Southern California was notorious for two things: It had become a place where ORV drivers could have a lot of fun and cause a lot of problems. Glamis, whose official name is the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area, came to define what happens when illegal activity on […]
Posted inWotr
The revolution will be motorized
Growing threats of violence; increasing rage; calls to restore liberty by throwing off unjust and unconstitutional government rule. The voices of the angry are loud, and they’re likely coming soon to a BLM Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service office near you. The issue that inspires this fury is closing roads through public lands. […]
Posted inWotr
Ordinary wild
The cougar looks thin, his narrow belly dragging close to the ground as he slinks along. Paws as big as saucers on the oil-spotted concrete. Mouth agape in a terrified pant below wild, shifting eyes. Shifting at cars that whoosh by, shifting at men who flicker at the edge of his vision – some pursuing, […]
Posted inWotr
A more colorful future awaits Nebraska
The 2010 Census recently revealed that the population of Grand Island, Nebraska’s fourth-largest city, has increased by a whopping 13 percent over the past decade. This was exciting news in a state in which 69 of the 93 counties lost population since 2000, and a third of those counties lost more than 25 percent of […]