Butte, Montana, doesn’t have a major art museum. Instead, it has a gigantic toxic pit.
People & Places
Posted inArticles
Wildfire survivors face another threat: PTSD
As disasters become more frequent, acute stress can turn chronic.
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The threat to Colorado’s acequias and the communities that depend on them
In the San Luis Valley, the communal and egalitarian resource offers a way of life.
Posted inNovember 1, 2021: The Radioactive Waste Next Door
Decolonizing Idaho’s road signs
A new effort will add Indigenous history to historical markers across the state.
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Coming out as trans in the rural West
A high schooler’s photo essay documents what it’s like to go through intense change in a place that never changes.
Posted inNovember 1, 2021: The Radioactive Waste Next Door
Afghan refugees find a home in the West
A resettlement agency in Twin Falls, Idaho, prepares for newcomers.
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How the U.S. legal system ignores tribal law
Elizabeth Reese, Stanford Law School’s first Native American professor, discusses the intentional marginalization of tribal legal structures.
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Indigenous women tackle college during a pandemic
How three Native American students took on the challenges of their first year away from home.
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What Las Vegas area workers say about navigating record unemployment rates
Federal benefits ended last month, but over 100,000 Nevadans are still out of work.
Posted inOctober 1, 2021: In The Graces of Grasses
How wildlife sightings create community
What we share and what we keep quiet in small mountain towns.
Posted inOctober 1, 2021: In The Graces of Grasses
What rebuilding from wildfire looks like
A photographer intimately documents how families are recovering one year after the Almeda Fire.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2021: Where Wolves May Tread
Family, culture, politics and heartbreak in the modern West
Nawaaz Ahmed’s debut novel ponders endings from beginnings.
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In spite of bans, evictions in New Mexico continued during the pandemic
Landlords and property managers filed more than 11,000 eviction notices since April 2020.
Posted inAugust 1, 2021: A Mega-Dairy Comes to the Desert
Is there really freedom in the outdoors?
After a year indoors, a writer remembers the joy — and pressures — of a childhood spent in Utah.
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What makes a whimbrel?
A writer reflects on natural cycles of absence and abundance, loss and love.
Posted inJuly 1, 2021: An Urban Greenspace Revolution
How will humans live through ecological collapse?
In ‘Believers,’ Lisa Wells profiles ordinary people who want to lead less destructive lives.
Posted inJune 1, 2021: Once and Future Fires
Film: After wildfire, a motel becomes a temporary refuge
Nearly 8,000 people lost their housing in Oregon’s Labor Day fires. Some are finally finding a home, for now.
Posted inJune 1, 2021: Once and Future Fires
Hotels for those left unhoused by wildfires
As climate change ratchets up wildfire intensity, an Oregon program provides a step toward home.
Posted inArticles
A path to getting Native lands back
Mary Big Bull-Lewis is taking a creative approach to returning ownership of the land and its stories to Native people.
Posted inMay 1, 2021: Beauty and Biodiversity in the Borderlands
The Los Angeles River’s overlooked anglers
Unhoused Angelenos use the urban river as a source of sustenance, but a proposal to revitalize the waterway could push them out.