You never know what you’ll find with a ‘detective of the land.’
People & Places
Posted inJune 26, 2017: Personal Pilgrimage
I am the High Priestess of Leave No Trace
A miscreant is littering. What’s the Priestess to do then?
Posted inArticles
In Montana, an election shows a deepening partisan divide
Gianforte wins a House seat despite violence and after millions of dollars in spending.
Posted inArticles
West Obsessed: Crimes against non-humanity
High Country News staffers discuss human-wildlife killings and conflicts.
Posted inJune 12, 2017: The Big Swing
‘This Glock belongs to a friend’
What’s the protocol for holding onto a depressed person’s gun?
Posted inArticles
In these Western cities, using less water costs more
Some homes pay five times as much as others for the same amount of water.
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
‘My Montana’: Depictions that resist Western myths
The works of painter Theodore Waddell, a rancher and Montanan.
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
An industrious badger; misspelled markers of death; a political shooting match
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
Anticipating the next ‘Big One’ in Anchorage
Can an imminent disaster draw tourists to Alaska’s largest city?
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
Meet Nevada’s cow cops
Where crime scene investigators ride the range.
Posted inMay 29, 2017: The Cost of a Comeback
Meet Jane, a climate scientist who fled Trump’s government
Worries about science censorship drove her from her post at the Energy Department.
Posted inArticles
On climate change: ‘Do something, do anything, just don’t do nothing’
How a lucky encounter changed the course of a young mother’s life.
Posted inArticles
Police shootings of Native Americans spark a movement
A new generation of activists on and off reservations struggle for visibility.
Posted inJune 12, 2017: The Big Swing
Can Wyoming learn from Utah’s public-land mistakes?
If the initiative is successful, it could be a model for other states.
Posted inArticles
In elk poaching case, a glimpse of a simmering land conflict
An Oregon rancher is charged for an elk slaughter.
Posted inArticles
West Obsessed: The prison economy traps the innocent
How a town dependent on incarceration came to be and what that meant for one asylum-seeker.
Posted inJune 12, 2017: The Big Swing
The danger of urban ‘heat islands’
How built-up cities and higher temperatures threaten human health.
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
‘If you don’t want us, tell us to go back’
The making of a California prison town.
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
#LiveAndLetTutu; a sodden Oregon; mastodon for dinner
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inMay 15, 2017: Prison Town
Meet Ruth, who makes a home for the houseless
After her husband’s death, a woman collects a new family.