The first heating bill I got was for October, and it jumped from summer levels right up to what I was paying mid-winter last year. Mind you, I didn’t even light the furnace pilot light until Oct.10, and because the weather was nice, we only kicked in the thermostat on a handful of days, less […]
Writers on the Range
Posted inWotr
Bet on Las Vegas for Western solutions
Las Vegas is a funny place to find solutions to the woes of Western cities, but in southern Nevada, the phenomenal growth of the last 20 years has spawned innovative ways to solve the problems of Western cities. Las Vegas has all the problems of a healthy economy — growth, sprawl, air pollution, traffic congestion, […]
Posted inWotr
The trouble with the Endangered Species Act is us
With House approval of his “Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act” last September, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., got a step closer to his career goal of eradicating the Endangered Species Act. Pombo, a developer posing as a rancher posing as an advocate of the public good, proclaims that the 32-year-old law is “broken” and a […]
Posted inWotr
Pombo’s plan to privatize the West must be stopped
What is it, exactly, that makes the West special? There are certainly many answers to that question, but perhaps the one that Westerners would give more than any other is our “wide open spaces.” Despite much development, there is still open space in the West: space to hike, to hunt, to breathe free, to escape […]
Posted inWotr
We need to store fat from the gas-feeding frenzy
Every fall, black bears enter a ravenous state in which they will do almost anything for food. Biologists call it hyperphagia — the time of super-eating. Bears in hyperphagia can get into trouble if their search for calories leads them to our backyards or to garbage cans behind the local diner. We Westerners have also […]
Posted inWotr
When hungry bears drop in for lunch
It was a few falls ago when I came home one late afternoon, only to find the floor covered in broken glass and pieces of pottery. It looked like a serious and not untalented artist had been at work. The pieces lay arranged in grotesque fashion, jutting up like mountaintops above a valley floor of […]
Posted inWotr
Wheelchairs and wilderness can coexist
Sometimes, life can change dramatically in the blink of an eye. The biggest change in my life came seven years ago, when I was backcountry skiing in the Hoover Wilderness near Yosemite. I missed a turn on a steep icy slope and fell into a rocky gully. In that ugly tumble I crushed my spinal […]
Posted inWotr
It’s not whether you win or lose…
The trouble with running for public office is the very real possibility that you will lose the race publicly. I considered this as I declared my candidacy for my small town’s city council. But there were three seats up for grabs, and I figured there would be a good chance I might run unopposed. When […]
Posted inWotr
It’s déjà vu all over again in Iraq
The wars in Vietnam and Iraq aren’t the same, of course, but there’s an eerie feeling of sameness to what’s happening now and what happened in the early 1970s. Only this time, it’s a conservative political coalition that’s crumbling. In 1971, when I moved to rural Wallowa County in Oregon, a national liberal coalition held […]
Posted inWotr
A Western railvolution begins
In 1981, when I got my first car — a used Toyota Corolla — the first thing I did was take a trip out West. For a prisoner of the sprawling suburbs of St. Louis, Mo., nothing could have been sweeter than to put that sea of homes in the rearview mirror, and to fill […]
Posted inWotr
Panhandling in our national parks
The Bush administration has spawned more than its fair share of high profile conflicts in our national parks, from opening Yellowstone’s gates to fleets of snowmobiles to its approval of a creationist tract maintaining the Grand Canyon is the product of Noah’s flood. One of the more far-reaching changes in the appearance and operations of […]
Posted inWotr
Avian flu: Don’t fear the flocks yet
It’s November, which means that the snow geese are pouring into Oregon’s Klamath Basin in the hundreds of thousands. The sight of the undulating flocks, snow white against slate blue storm clouds, is unspeakably beautiful. These are tundra geese, passing through en route to winter quarters in California’s Central Valley. They have come all the […]
Posted inWotr
Those rugged Alaskan individualists still love the federal dole
Opponents of Alaskan statehood in the 1950s feared a state would continue to be a subsidized ward of the federal government. Supporters argued that once it was a state, Alaska would make its own decisions, attract new business and become less dependent on the federal government. Statehood may have come to Alaska in 1959, but […]
Posted inWotr
Lessons from a porcupine
Nights were frosting already when the porcupine came down the hill and started nosing around our yard. This year, I started explaining to the porcupine how my mood generally follows the trend of the season. I told him I’d like him to understand a little about the condition of the world and how that relates […]
Posted inWotr
Friends don’t let friends drive gas-guzzlers
Judging from TV, Americans seem to think the only thing needed to sell a product or solve a problem is a catchy slogan. You’ve probably got the tinkly music from some jingle running through your head right now — even if you’ve tried to remove it with an ice pick. So I’m starting my crusade […]
Posted inWotr
When a forest goes feral, it’s time for volunteers
Wallace Stegner once wrote that the worst thing that can happen to a piece of land, short of coming into the hands of an unscrupulous developer, is to be left open to the unmanaged public. His great fear seems to be coming true. With the downsizing of the federal workforce and the increasing mountain of […]
Posted inWotr
Compassion can be dangerous to your health
It feels to me as if the Dalai Lama left a weapon of mass destruction in Idaho when he visited this September. I’m not a Buddhist, but I have admired the teachings and tolerance of the Dalai Lama for years. So I couldn’t miss the chance to visit the prayer wheel that he blessed at […]
Posted inWotr
Land trusts have gotten the word to shape up
Over the past several years, conservation easements have come under increasing scrutiny. Critics have argued that these private agreements — designed to forever protect open space on private land from development — have resulted in widespread abuses, such as giving too much money in tax breaks or other advantages to the wealthy and powerful. These […]
Posted inWotr
Are we ready to learn the lessons of fire and flood?
Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig caused a stir Oct. 14 when he suggested that the 9th Ward, home of many of New Orleans’ poor, should be restored as a wetland. No one would call Craig a tree-hugger. Craig has built a career out of supporting dams and levee systems that have reshaped the West. He […]
Posted inWotr
Wilderness bill is a test for common-sense conservation in Idaho
For solitude and inspiration, we seek out wilderness on our public lands, where the road ends and the trail begins, where, by law, we leave our mechanized contrivances and walk, float or ride in on horseback. Wilderness, a gift of nature, remains today because of laws, and where protective laws don’t yet exist, the values […]