Floyd E. Dominy doesn’t seem to hear the question from a college student right away. “Floyd Elgin Dominy, larger than life,” as Marc Reisner called him in Cadillac Desert. Maybe the former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is listening instead to the hum of the nearby turbines. Maybe the shine of his eyes […]
Writers on the Range
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Writing on native ground in New Mexico
ZUNI PUEBLO, N.M. – From far out in the high desert of western New Mexico, green-leaved Chinese elms create a sharp burst of color, an island in the sagebrush and juniper and high red mesas that make up the Zuni landscape. This is home to 6,400 Zunis, one of 19 Indian pueblos that spread across […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Activists join forces against mining law
NEAR DURANGO, Colo. – Some of us at this conference for mining activists are feeling as if we’ve just been sent to summer camp. The main building of the former silver mining camp, with its long wooden picnic tables, picture-window view of San Juan National Forest and cafeteria meals, is making people nostalgic. “Every time […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Montana’s deregulation dilemma
Helena, Mont. – A fly fisherman crouches in the streamside alders, watching intently as large trout rhythmically rise to sip tiny flies from the smooth surface of the river. Just upstream, the concrete hulk of a Montana Power Co. dam dominates the horizon. The vibration of powerful generators courses through the river’s bed. All seems […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
We can have electricity, jobs and clean air
There are big problems with the Mohave power plant. From the Hopi mesas of my people, we notice it all the time. Until the late 1960s we could see the sacred San Francisco Peaks clearly from my home near old Oraibi on the Hopi mesas, 80 miles away as the crow flies. It is the […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Give the mining industry a second chance…
Dear HCN, As a thrice-starved-out Montanan, I have a different take on mining than writer Heather Abel in your Dec. 22, 1997, issue. There are aspects of mining and its politics that High Country News should not have glossed over. A prime example is the so-called Clean Water Initiative, I-122. It failed in the 1996 […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
…but let’s not forget about the past
Dear HCN, In your Dec. 22, 1997, issue, I was quoted as saying, “What it might take is for some people to die before people start sitting up and saying, ‘Take that pollution out of rivers.’ “ I didn’t mean by that there will have to be violent confrontations, or even that people will immediately […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
A visit with the River People of Hanford Reach
“In time to come the white men will build dams which will close the Columbia River to the salmon. At Priest Rapids, there is nothing the white people want in our little life, and there we may live unmolested.” – Prophecy of Smowhala, founder of the Dreamer Religion of the Wanapum people in the mid-1800s, […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Wyoming’s heroes celebrate a birthday
LANDER, Wyo. – The Wyoming Outdoor Council, another creation of High Country News founder Tom Bell, held its 30th birthday party here last week. Back in the 1960s, Bell, a fourth-generation Wyoming native raised on a ranch and trained in wildlife conservation, became incensed at the abuses he saw on the land, especially the illegal […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Excerpts from a New West dictionary
cal*i*for*ni*an (kal’ u forn’ yun) n. 1. resident of the state of California. 2. imprudent spender single-handedly responsible for inflated values of real property. [earlier form: Texan] en*dan*gered spe*cies (en dan’ grd spe’ sez) n. 1. every group that has had a representative address a public hearing in the West: “Ranchers, miners, etc.: We’re the […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
One county’s misgivings over not-so-ordinary housing
Taos County, N.M. – Architect and developer Michael Reynolds doesn’t usually lock the gate to his property west of Taos, but ever since county officials drove out to inspect his work site, he’s been viewing outsiders with a wary eye. Recently a county code enforcement officer had red-tagged several houses under construction, and just after […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
At Tahoe forum, a tribe wins a deal
LAKE TAHOE, Nev. – Washoe tribal chairman Brian Wallace says he feels “bittersweet” when he looks at what has happened to Lake Tahoe. The tribe’s name for itself – “Wa Shi Shiw” – means “the people from here.” But the Washoe haven’t felt at home at Lake Tahoe for a long time. During the California […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
Foreman finds hope amid ecological rubble
Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson should thank their stars that Dave Foreman chose to become a conservation preacher rather than a religious preacher. Otherwise, they would be out of jobs. Foreman, who said his family had expected him to become a Bible-thumper, traces his unique ministry back to the doomsday preaching of Cassandra, and he […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
After 120 years, the Nez Perce come home
PARADISE, Ore. – A few weeks ago, when I ran down a slippery road near here, the soggy weather seemed unfortunate. It was the day of a naming ceremony and salmon feast celebrating the return of the Nez Perce, a Northwest tribe driven from this region 120 years ago. The Nez Perce were returning as […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Some hook and bullet magazines hit the mark
The key to understanding outdoor magazines – which I both read and write for – is that they exist to sell advertising. This is neither an indictment nor something unique: Virtually all periodicals except nonprofits depend on ad sales for their survival. The advantage of a large circulation comes not from income, but as bait […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
‘Road warriors’ spread out over Utah
The pink line drawn on the topo map looks like a small finger poked into the close contour lines of Utah’s Deep Creek Mountains. My job as a “road warrior” for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was to find this jeep road, if it still existed in the BLM wilderness study area, follow it as […]
Posted inMarch 31, 1997: Big Sky, big mess in Montana
High Country Blues
Interns share zeal, not meals Earnest Youth-Apple says that the idea of becoming an intern at High Country Blues came to him after talking to his hepatica. “She told me to get the word out any way I could; if it meant talking to people who are outright plant eaters, and those who are a […]
Posted inMarch 31, 1997: Big Sky, big mess in Montana
Founding father challenges his movement
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – On the surface, everything seemed under control at the Western States Coalition Summit VII held here last November. The wise-use movement’s leaders delivered the sermons, and the crowd of 300 responded with well-timed murmurs, hand-clapping and even outright whoops of delight. Yet, behind the scenes, the cracks of a movement […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Oregon’s ranchers vote for survival
From the start, it was easy to see that the meeting on a bleary January 1994 day in Albuquerque, N.M., would go nowhere. The purpose was to look for a compromise, but four New Mexico environmentalists and ranchers spent most of the time hurling barbs at each other. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Gov. Bruce […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Build it, and folks will come
We came and went like the storms that passed over our heads, living at 11,300 feet in the Gore Range above Vail, Colo., where we raced against “old man winter” to build a log hut for the Tenth Mountain Division. Four of us lived in a tepee for five months while we labored, working too […]