Letter to the editor

In “The Forest Service should embrace a full-time workforce” (July 2020), Anastasia Selby made a compelling argument for full-time employment. However, that is in stark contrast to what many Forest Service firefighters actually want. The seasonality of the job is something the vast majority of wildland firefighters enjoy. The idea that we want to keep […]

Sarah Keller’s description of her journey to use hunting as a way to center herself does not surprise me or many other hunters (“Hunting for myself,” November 2020), though I faced no reality even remotely comparable to hers. I first hunted and shot a rabbit, which my brother and I cooked and ate, about the […]

Thank you for publishing Adam Sowards’ excellent perspective (“30 years later, the lessons of Redwood Summer,” November 2020). It’s a good time to remember Judi Bari’s role in helping to organize and publicize the events of that summer and beyond. Her background of living and working as a carpenter in the logging towns of Northern […]

I really appreciated the well-researched and in-depth reportage on the presidential candidates’ public-land policies and how they would affect the Grand Junction, Colorado, community (“Grand Disjunction,” October 2020). This critical issue is often overlooked and under-covered. I did take issue with the voices that were highlighted. The two conservationists were well-spoken and versed in public-land […]

Good job, HCN, and fine reporting by Jessica Kutz on the “Young and politically empowered” Latino canvassers like Fhernanda Ortiz, and their drive to register young Latinos in Arizona to vote (October 2020). This is worthy of a shout of encouragement — a great cause essential to the survival of this democracy. Stay strong, and thank you! […]

I enjoyed reading the interview with editors Betsy Marston and Paul Larmer, “A little paper with clout” (September 2020). There were two questions posed regarding HCN’s increasing coverage of social issues as opposed to strictly natural resources and public-lands issues. Please, please, please don’t stop covering social issues and city issues.  HCN has its finger […]

“The Physics of Connection” by Barb Lachenbruch was a fine essay (September 2020). The author did a tremendous job of weaving together heartfelt sentiments. She eloquently took us through the arc of her life and her father’s. Having lost a parent to Alzheimer’s myself, the author’s touching yearnings to connect with her father were emotions […]

While tromping around for many years in such “awesome” places as the Colorado Plateau, the Northern Rockies and Alaska, I have struggled for words to describe their grandeur, and thus will be forever grateful to Paige Blankenbuehler for using the perfect phraseology in her article, “Grand Disjunction” — “the kind of landscape whose scale outflanks […]

I enjoyed learning about HCN’s history in the 50th anniversary issue (September 2020) and, in particular, Carl Segerstrom’s interview with Betsy Marston and Paul Larmer. I agree with Marston that regularly including Native journalists and issues is a welcome improvement and also that HCN should “start with the public lands, because everything flows from that.” […]

Congratulations on an incredible piece of journalism, “Extreme Heat” (September 2020). The content, obviously, is compelling, but writer Jessica Kutz’s language, style and structure made it read as a wonderful piece of literature. Clearly, you put a lot of work into the article, and it shows. Thank you for the work you do. Trey Duffy […]

Jordana Rosenfeld’s book review of White Utopias shows some serious confusion (October 2020).  Rosenfeld’s language conflates spiritual growth with the trendy issues of social justice. I can answer the question posed by the review’s title — “Is spiritual growth possible without confronting whiteness?” — in one word:  Yes. That’s because spiritual growth has nothing to do […]

I’m basically a climate refugee from Texas looking to settle somewhere in rural Washington or Oregon (“A West in flux,” September 2020). I recognize that Texas will likely be too hot to inhabit within my lifetime. So these trends are concerning to me because I already cannot afford any kind of reasonable acreage or homesite […]

One result of the Trump administration’s insidious policy changes to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is the Bureau of Land Management’s use of so-called “vegetation treatment” programs (“Narrow NEPA,” September 2020). These environmentally destructive efforts involve stripping natural lowland forests, shrublands and grasslands using chaining, mowing, masticating, herbiciding and burning. The areas […]

Thank you for your excellent article, “Experts in de-escalation,” July 2020, explaining how Eugene, Oregon, has been able to avoid unnecessary policing.  This story needs to be sent to every mayor in every city in the country. The program you wrote about, CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets — should be a blueprint for […]

I appreciate Betsy Marston echoing my concerns (“A little paper with clout,” September 2020) about HCN as stated in my letter to the editor last month. She encapsulates my feelings by saying: “Sometimes I don’t get why we do a story, because I want it to connect to the land and everything that goes on. […]

Regarding “A wildlife refuge under siege” (September 2020): Anyone who has read Marc Reisner’s book Cadillac Desert (1986) knows that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation don’t give a damn about environmental impacts or accurate numbers. Caleb Efta, via social media This article appeared in the print edition of the […]

After reading Alex Carr Johnson’s piece (“Now that you’ve gone West, young man,” September 2020), I wonder, “What now?” What does it mean — to Johnson and similarly enlightened people — to understand that you live on land unfairly taken and that you are not entitled to? To me, a Native person, I worry that […]

This is true for every mountain town that has become a playground to East Coasters and urbanites: The workers serving the upper class cannot afford to live in the towns they work in (“A West in flux,” September 2020). Meanwhile, the second- and third-homeowners seem oblivious to how their choices fuel climate change, housing shortages, […]

Concerning “The thin blurred line” (August 2020), I’d like to suggest an alternate response to violence on any side. Keep the damn statue! But make it tell both sides of the story. Add a plaque that describes the genocide of Indigenous peoples. Bring school groups and others to teach people of the racist history. Meanwhile, […]