Nick Tilsen was arrested for protesting President Trump at Mount Rushmore. Now, his legal troubles are part of a legacy.
History
Posted inArticles
Are wildfires contaminating your drinking water?
Manufactured substances known as volatile organic compounds pollute water around the U.S., and they’re heightened in the aftermath of fires.
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How suspected fake Indigenous art wound up in a Wyoming museum
Questions of authenticity and provenance surround artwork that traveled from East Texas to rural Wyoming.
Posted inNovember 1, 2020: When the Smoke Clears
Cornell University addresses stolen Indigenous land in new project
The university obtained almost 990,000 acres of expropriated Indigenous land through the Morrill Act and hopes to provide some remedies.
Posted inNovember 1, 2020: When the Smoke Clears
California’s history of anti-Blackness hides beneath its progressive reputation
A new history of the state traces early civil rights battles spearheaded by Black activists.
Posted inArticles
Inhospitable, remote and compelling: The island swallowed by nowhere
Alaska’s St. Matthew Island has had its share of human visitors, but none can remain long.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
Black cowboys reclaim their history in the West
At an annual rodeo in Phoenix, the contributions of African Americans are finally recognized.
Posted inNovember 1, 2020: When the Smoke Clears
The lessons of Redwood Summer, thirty years later
A summer of protest ultimately marked a turning point in environmental activism.
Posted inArticles
West coast wildfires signal a planetary fire age
Beyond climate change, history has helped create the pyrocene.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2020: The Next West
‘Somebody has to keep people on their toes’
High Country News’ unlikely and remarkable origin story.
Posted inArticles
Contested water settlements inflamed the Navajo Nation’s health crisis
Colonial laws and federal neglect created a worse-case scenario during a global pandemic.
Posted inAugust 1, 2020: Infectious Ideologies
As a plague sweeps the land, zealots see a gift from heaven
Extremist pastors are using the COVID-19 pandemic to push their conservative religious ideologies.
Posted inArticles
Colorado State University acknowledges its establishment at ‘dire cost to Native Nations’
The land-grant university hopes to recruit more Indigenous students.
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Cherokee Nation adopted racism from Europeans. It’s time to reject it.
As our tribe debates Cherokee history and identity, Cherokee citizens with white privilege carry the most responsibility to move our tribe forward.
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
The U.S. is closing its doors to asylum seekers
‘The Dispossessed’ follows a family’s harrowing search for safety, and asks what new policies say about the nation’s long-standing ideals.
Posted inJune 1, 2020: Dissent at a Distance
American violence in the time of coronavirus
Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz puts armed ‘reopen’ protests in their historical context.
Posted inArticles
Monique the space elk and the wild history of tracking wildlife
The legacy of scientific researchers, and a couple intrepid ungulates, endures half a century later.
Posted inArticles
How Mormon history helps explain today’s public-land fights
Betsy Gaines Quammen’s new book looks at the Bundy family and religion’s connection to the Western landscape.