When Mike Wagner took Northern Arizona University students to the site where he was trapping bark beetles near Flagstaff, he expected to show them a simple lesson: Once freed from a funnel-trap, the insects would find a juniper tree and burrow into it. But as the entomologist tipped the trap, thousands of beetles poured out, […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
Idaho grows out of its cowboy boots
Idaho politicians love to conduct the nation’s business dressed in cowboy boots. Their boots aren’t just for walkin.’ On the capital’s marble floors they ring out an attitude of cowboy values and ornery independence, of things being different way out West. Loafers they are not. Daandy as they may be, cowboy boots reflect life in […]
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The salting of the West – who cares?
If a Colorado mine were to dump a hundred thousand tons of chemical salts onto the ground, chances are good that residents nearby would be upset and local and state agencies would get on the mine operator’s case. Yet, the state of Colorado dumps 125,000 tons of chemical salts on its roads each year, and […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Planning for the new rural Idaho
Recently, an acclaimed young writer and a world-renowned opera singer charmed a packed house in Driggs, Idaho. What were they doing there instead of in a place a hundred times larger? The answer tells us something about the future of rural Idaho. The writer was Ann Patchett, whose most recent novel, Bel Canto, draws its […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
A gift of supreme excellence
It is good to be writing again. The mountains have snow, the air is cold, the sun is shining. It is a good November day, and I have been thinking of this idea of sovereignty, an almost foreign word here in Antonito, Colo., where there is so much poverty, and where most of us, to […]
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The flu comes to visit
Why do people come over, fling themselves on my couch and croak and quack about how sick they are? Really. There is a bad cold here making its rounds through the houses carried by messengers like these I hand them cans of chicken soup with rice and urge them to GO AND TAKE CARE OF […]
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You can’t stuff a stocking with chainsaw fuel, or can you?
It’s in my genes, like birds heeding the instinct to fly south for the winter; a mysterious force possesses me every December, luring me to, where else? The mall. But reject these instincts I must, for no Christmas gift would disgust my environmental extremist husband more than something from J.C. Penney. I love my husband […]
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Why I love one of Utah’s most remote places
I’ve always been attracted to parts of Utah that others describe as being a whole lot of nothing, godforsaken or not-the-end-of-the-earth-but-you-can-see-it-from-there. I think our preference for landscapes can be just as trite as our preference for beautiful people hawking products in magazines or delivering the mundane news on television. We like pretty. Not me. So-called […]
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Succumbing to globalism, one cup at a time
Not long ago and with little fanfare, Montana lost one of its distinctions. It ceased to be one of the last few states without a Starbucks Coffee Shop. Last year, only six states didn’t have a stand-alone store. The offending shop arrived in August in Helena on Prospect Avenue. The greenish copper rotunda of the […]
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A new rural West is being born in Idaho
Recently, an acclaimed young writer and a world-renowned opera singer charmed a packed house in Driggs, Idaho. What were they doing there instead of a place a hundred times larger? The answer tells us something about the future of rural Idaho. The writer was Ann Patchett, whose most recent novel, Bel Canto, draws its intensity […]
Posted inWotr
Colorado needs to break its cigarette habit
To stanch the state’s financial bleeding, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens wants to get a quick hit of $800 million owed by Big Tobacco instead of stretching out annual payments for a total of $2.1 billion. Meanwhile, money for anti-smoking programs remains in limbo. This is, at the least, a curious moral dilemma. Colorado is getting […]
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The most vulnerable farmworkers are the least protected
Jose and Luis are only 10-and 11-years old, but they are already expert cherry pickers. After three summers working in the orchards with their father, they know how to pluck cherries without harming the tree bud. They know how to avoid the tractors that speed through the slender rows of trees. They know that long […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
A cheer for runaway bison and the Rocky Mountain Front
Anyone with a heart had to cheer the bison. One recent snowy day in Great Falls, Mont., three of the half-ton creatures were being loaded off a truck into a slaughterhouse. One of the half-wild bovines busted through a five-foot timber corral and — bingo! — led a buffalo breakout. The three beasts stampeded through […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Leaving Las Vegas
I lived in Las Vegas recently for about a year, doing research at a large weapons-testing facility outside of town. Among all the places I’ve lived, from tropical islands to small towns to Western strip-mall communities, Las Vegas seemed uniquely American for its boosterism of get-rich-quick schemes and the sex industry — and for the […]
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Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers. Mostly Asian Americans, shoppers come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing […]
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A love letter to a sewage lagoon
At a neighbor’s house a few years ago, I saw a sphere of ruddy sandstone displayed on a ledge. Rolling it in my hand, I recognized the heft and grittiness of the ball. “We used to find these at Lake Powell,” I said, “Is that where this came from?” Our neighbor, a dedicated environmental activist, […]
Posted inNovember 24, 2003: New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut
Butte ponders the power of Evel
BUTTE, MONTANA — This is a town that has stopped at nothing in its pursuit of a buck. It has fouled its water with mining runoff and demolished half its downtown for a gigantic open pit, all for a relentless red harvest of copper. It seems strange, then, that many longtime residents feel Butte has […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Being a local doesn’t make you any better
“Where is this guy from?” I said to myself, flipping to the inside cover of the new book, “True Grizz,” by Douglas Chadwick. It said the author lived in Whitefish, Mont., a trendy town north of Flathead Lake. He may live there, I thought, but where’s he from? It’s embarrassing to recount my thought process. […]
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Thanksgiving as a holiday of the imagination
There is a saying among the Lakota that when the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, they fell on their knees and prayed, and then they fell on the Indians and preyed. Perhaps it is not surprising that the stories of this country’s founding are awash in error. As Napoleon reportedly said, “What is history […]
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Getting ready to wreck the vote
Let’s just get this out of the way: As a nerd, and an overly opinionated one at that, Election Day — not Thanksgiving — has always been my favorite “holiday.” Some kids couldn’t wait to turn 16 and drive; I couldn’t wait to turn 18 and vote. Simply put, I’m a maniac for democracy. That […]