I live among the remote mesas, canyons and scattered towns and villages of the Hopi and Navajo reservations in northeast Arizona. A desolate and foreboding place by conventional standards, it’s a quiet, starkly beautiful land to the people who have called it home for centuries. But it is, by anyone’s reckoning, far removed from the […]
Essays
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Once more unto the breach: Dams could fall in the Northwest
Many in the Northwest thought they’d killed the idea of breaching four dams on the Snake River in Washington when they convinced the Clinton administration to pass on it, and then George W. Bush became president. They celebrated too soon. On May 7, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland threw out the salmon-protection plan […]
Posted inWotr
It’s buyer beware when it comes to Atlantic salmon
When Dan Wasil plucks a white package of “Fresh Atlantic Salmon” from the grocery store cooler, he hardly glances at its label. “I assume that it comes from the Atlantic,” says Wasil, a fundraiser who has lived in Portland for over 30 years. While he says he’s careful to check labels to see if chicken […]
Posted inWotr
Sometimes you have to fight
I may not be a fan of George Bush’s foreign policy, but I fully agree with one point the president repeatedly made in the months before the Iraq war. The president told us that “sometimes you have to fight.” As Mr. Bush explained, when the other guy just doesn’t get it, he needs a punch […]
Posted inWotr
Environmentalists made a deal with the devil
In its effort to gain support from Americans whose connections to the natural world have become less direct and more emotional, environmentalists made a deal with a devil that is coming back to haunt them. The devil in question is the animal-rights movement. For nearly four decades, it has skillfully manipulated the media to propagate […]
Posted inWotr
Real ranches don’t have “ette” in their name
Listen up, folks, here’s a vocabulary lesson from a rancher and writer who’s tired of bad writing distorting Western history. A ranch is not just any patch of rural ground, and the saying, “All hat, no cattle,” is more than a joke. It’s true most ranchers prefer not to reveal the size of their places, […]
Posted inWotr
Once more into the breach: Dams could fall in the Northwest
Many in the Northwest thought they’d killed the idea of breaching four dams on the Snake River in Washington when they convinced the Clinton administration to pass on it, and then elected George Bush president. They celebrated too soon. On May 7, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland threw out the salmon protection plan […]
Posted inWotr
The West loses an unsentimental guide
Historian David Lavender was the best sort of guide a traveler in the West could have: A quiet man with a wry sense of humor, he was passionate about this region, refused to romanticize it and was happy to share his knowledge if asked. He was never sentimental about the West, writing about cowboys: “Although […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
To restore the West, go big and go native
It’s always disconcerting to have a myth blown apart — like when you discover that your favorite sports star, whom you always thought to be a nice, upstanding person, cheats on his wife or abuses his kids. The world wobbles; food doesn’t taste as good; you just want to fall asleep and wake up when […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
In Iraq, there’s hope of restoring the Garden of Eden
Watching the chaotic aftermath of repression and war in Iraq hurts my heart. As an antidote, I conjure a vision of hope: a shimmering expanse of water and life that may once again grace the Iraqi desert. Until a decade ago, southern Iraq boasted one of the world’s largest wetlands, the Mesopotamia Marshes, almost 7,800 […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
In search of the desert manna
TAOS, N.M. — Winter was coming, and like so many others, I was broke. I had a freezer full of elk meat, but it wasn’t enough to survive the cold months in the high country. There’s no fat in elk meat; explorers Lewis and Clark lost weight on it, my friends say. With little money […]
Posted inWotr
Why I fight: The coming gas explosion in the West
Here’s what I once believed: that if the President knew about the damage done to our land by the energy industry, the damage would cease. I once believed that if you could show that industry can extract gas without damaging land right near us — as it does on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, and […]
Posted inWotr
Green Republicans: It’s not an oxymoron
In the seven years since I co-founded Republicans for Environmental Protection, officially known as REP America, I have answered two questions more often than any others: “Isn’t Republicans for Environmental Protection an oxymoron?” And, “If you care so much about conservation and environmental protection, why don’t you become a Democrat?” The first one is easy […]
Posted inWotr
Why Greens need blue blazers
One of my childhood friends, Karl Warkomski, is the first and only elected Green Party member in ultra-right-wing Orange County, Calif. Orange Country — home to the mega-hawk and former congressman “B2 Bob” Dornan — is a place where people get misty-eyed remembering the Reagan presidency. So how in the world did Karl get elected? […]
Posted inWotr
A Hopi woman warrior is honored in Arizona
America treats today’s soldiers with the kind of respect that Vietnam veterans could only dream about. Such nearly universal support — even from those who opposed the war against Iraq — shows how much the nation has learned from its mistakes. Efforts to honor one fallen soldier from Arizona show a refreshing desire to right […]
Posted inWotr
No way to run Wyoming
Imagine, for a moment, that some kooky politicians in Washington, D.C.. decided they wanted to invade Iraq with feather dusters . Now, imagine a colonel in the Army warned them that this was a bad idea, and they need would need real tools of war, helicopters and tanks and such, to execute such a plan. […]
Posted inWotr
With its back to the wall, California turns to the sea
It’s going to be a hot, feverish summer, even more so because water supplies are pinched unusually tight. Nowhere is that as true as in California. On New Year’s day, Interior Secretary Gale Norton rudely weaned the state off its long-running overuse of Colorado River water, slashing access to the river by 15 percent. Now, […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Water principles of the West begin with blaming California
Like the rest of the West, Colorado is suffering from a multi-year drought. Drought, in case you’re curious, is one of those technical terms for what happens when you have enough water for 1 million residents, but not enough for 4 million, let alone the 10 million that the developers would like to see. What […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
A desert’s stolen secrets
It caught my eye, like a ruby someone had dropped on the ground. I was already looking for something, a handhold maybe, a place to step as the two of us scrambled up this route of cliffs and ledges in the Utah desert. I squinted into the shadow of a leaning boulder and saw the […]
Posted inWotr
In Iraq, there’s hope of restoring the Garden of Eden
Watching the chaotic aftermath of repression andwar in Iraq hurts my heart. As an antidote, I conjure a vision of hope: a shimmering expanse of water and life that may once again grace the Iraqi desert. Until a decade ago, southern Iraq boasted one of the world’s largest wetlands, the Mesopotamia Marshes, almost 7,800 square […]