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I wrote this little essay eight years ago for High Country News. Since then my son and his mother have moved the family's ranching operations up to the Crow Indian Reservation south of Billings, Montana .... different world, different culture and surely a different bureaucracy to contend with. I still go up in the spring to help them brand their calves. But while specific environmental issues may have changed, the attitudes toward people who want to re-introduce wolves and protect grizzly bears is pretty much as it was in Wyoming, and in California where I live now for that matter, where friends of the coyote and mountain lion put livestock ranchers on edge. One thing has changed, however. Throughout the West greens and ranchers are spending more time together, listening to each others concerns and positions, in public meetings, church basements and community centers, and better yet, in each others' kitchens.--Mark Dowie, Pte. Reyes Station, Ca
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Though extremists on either side would never admit it, ranchers and greens care about the same things.
When I moved to California from Wyoming in 1963, at 24 years of age, the most recent item on my résumé was "cowhand" ... | | MORE... | |  |
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Laramie - Could anyone be unfamiliar with the expression "Man's best friend?"
But does everyone know that the beloved household dog is descended from wolves? Indeed, recent genetics research suggests that all domestic dogs originated from wolves in East Asia about 15,000 years ago. (Leonard et al., 2002)
Could wolves, too, be man’s friend? |
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An environmentalist, Walt Gasson |
Casper - Remember the Information Age? Those heady, post-millennial days when our vast new technological networks banished ignorance, liberated activists and delivered the whole of human scholarship to every modem from Manderson to Manhattan?
It was fun for about 15 minutes, until the first chain e-mail popped up, full of demonstrable lies about some public figure or historical event.
It turns out that a powerful Web collects a lot of flies. Vacuuming them all up is a growth industry ...
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CHEYENNE - Imagine a major league baseball team with mostly rookies and second year players. Or a construction crew full of novices, impatient to take charge without consulting the blueprints or the foreman.
Then consider the plight of the Wyoming House of Representatives, an inexperienced and underpaid bunch of solons as you are likely to find in any American statehouse. In past years, freshmen have been mostly an orderly group, looking to veteran legislators as models and leaders. Not so much now ... |
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Sheridan - Wyoming is getting younger and richer.
Rarely do these two demographics merge and create happy endings. Wyoming is trying to be the exception.
The money part is pretty straightforward. Wyoming's real earnings in 2006 reached their highest level in 36 years. Our job growth in 2007 was the second highest in the nation.
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"These animals that are just running around out here, … they couldn't be wild, could they?" |
Casper - Retailers have the expression that you "open your doors and the public comes in." That's equally true for the National Park Service and certainly for Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. A range of humanity drives, walks, bikes or snowmobiles into our national parks and they bring with them all of society’s strengths and weaknesses.
Visitors prove themselves, again and again, capable of great courtesy, kindness and understanding, as well as folly and foolishness ...
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Wind River Sun Dance and Religious Freedom
Laramie - For centuries, the Northern Arapaho Tribe has conducted the Sun Dance, of which the centerpiece is the offering of an eagle to the Creator. Dancers, wearing eagle feathers, chant and blow whistles made from eagle wing bones. The eagle's tail is placed at the top of a pole in the center of the offering lodge. The wings carry the Tribe's prayers to the Creator.
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Laramie - A new report on climate change, one of twenty being produced by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), describes effects on land, water, agriculture, and biodiversity that are expected over the next 25 to 50 years.
The West and Southwest will see drier conditions, with runoff starting and ending sooner. Longer growing seasons will likely be offset by limited water and nutrients. In arid regions erosion and wildfire will increase, to the detriment of native species, water and air quality, and private property.
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Lander - I called Habitat for Humanity the other day about an old house in Riverton which was being offered virtually free to anyone who would move it. After 15 years of swearing I was about to start building a cabin in the country, maybe I could sneak this old building onto my land under cover of night.
The landowner needed it out of the way so he could expand his business. Erin Shirley, of Habitat, didn't want to see the house torn down – it was a beat up but stylish 1930s bungalow with a porch and a hipped roof. But months of advertising around Riverton had gotten little response, and the wrecking ball was about to swing.
Lander Talk: Have Chair, Will Sell |
Then she sent an email to "Lander-Talk", an internet list-serve that originated in Riverton's neighbor-town about 25 miles to the west. (A list-serve is essentially an internet mailing list – you send something to it, and it gets distributed to a group with common interests that has signed on to receive emails.) That's what prompted me to call Habitat about the house. So, apparently, and suddenly, did a lot of other folks.
"Now I've got a bunch of people to call back," Erin said when I got through on her busy phone. "It's unbelievable. I wish Riverton had something like the Lander list."
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Casper -When a torch-wielding mob somewhere, someday, finally chases a TV weatherman down the street, there will be farmers at the head of it. They'll be blaming the messenger, sure – and boosting the poor sap's ratings, besides. But anyone who's ever sat in a tractor cab dragging a cultivator will chuckle ...
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Cheyenne - The typical profile of a Republican candidate who wins a statewide office in Wyoming includes 1) having paid his or her dues with faithful party service and 2) having sought and won the approval of Republican Party leaders in Natrona County.
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The apparent front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination | | MORE... | | |
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Sheridan - It's the beginning of May and my furnace is running like hell. The problem isn't my furnace, which is only a few years old, it's my house.
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It was built in 1924, a time when economic depression cast a pall over Sheridan. Builders didn't exactly subscribe to excess in constructing a weatherproof | | MORE... | | |
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Laramie - How much are big game animals worth to Wyoming? A judge recently ordered a hunter to pay $6000 restitution for killing a bull elk and leaving it to waste.
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The Wyoming Game and Fish Department offers $5000 for information leading to the arrest of persons poaching moose or elk. A Wyoming game warden, describing an incident last fall | | MORE... | | |
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An open letter
Dear "X" and Governor Dave Freudenthal,
I'm writing to the next director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and to the Wyoming governor, on a matter of some urgency. |
You're running out of time to phase out and shut down the 22 elk feedgrounds in western Wyoming. | | MORE... | | |
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Colton H. Bryant, 25-year-old married father of two young children, died Feb. 14, 2006 from head injuries suffered in a fall from an oil rig south of Boulder, Wy. State investigators said the accident could have been prevented with a simple handrail. The Wyoming Dept. of Employment Workers''Safety Division fined the rig operator, Patterson-UTI Energy, the world’s second biggest drilling company, $7,031 for safety violations.
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Bryant's preventable death working for a company that the same year netted $673-million in profit was documented in Montana journalist Ray Ring's award-winning article, "Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields" in the April 2, 2007, edition of the regional bi-weekly High Country News. Now, acclaimed African-Wyomingite author Alexandra Fuller ( see interview) has written a moving account of Colton Bryant's life and tragic death amid the frenzied, dangerous drilling spree in southeast Wyoming. Here, with special permission of the author and her publisher, Penguin Press, are the first two chapters of "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant: The Story of a Wyoming Boy," and an excerpt from later in the book when young Colton decides to follow his father into work in the oil fields... | | MORE... | | |
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Before Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s April 11-20 state business trip to China, his staff announced that travel expenses would be paid for by the United States-Asia Foundation, "a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to foster relationships between the United States and Asia."
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What the governor says he | | MORE... | | |
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CHEYENNE - Halfway through his second term as governor of Wyoming, some people are asking Dave Freudenthal to run for a third time.
In fact, according to the state Democratic Party chairman, “He is being asked to run for all sorts of things.” |
That would include the three federal offices that become available this year, and the governor’s seat in 2010. | | MORE... | | |
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CHEYENNE - Large stands of dead and dying lodge pole pine can instill a certain amount of dread in observers. In the midst of an enduring drought, all that dead, dying and dry wood conjures up visions of catastrophic wildfires racing through the national forests of Wyoming and the West. |
Vast stands of mountain pine beetle-killed forests make people, including me, | | MORE... | | |
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SHERIDAN - I am a recycling fool, but recently I've been pondering the petro-wisdom of schlepping a flattened tuna fish can from Sheridan to Portland. Recycling has always been a problem in the land of long haulage.
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It takes a lot of diesel to haul paper, cardboard, cans, and glass from Wyoming to various paper or steel mills or scrap exporters on the west coast. If you’re not careful, you'll burn as much | | MORE... | | |
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After years of construction inactivity and several false starts, some wags in Wyoming's coal rich Powder River Basin began to refer to the proposed billion dollar Two Elk power plant project 40 miles southeast of Gillette as "No Elk."
"It's kind of like Two Elk and 'Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?' " said Christy Hale, clerk/treasurer for the city of Wright, the nearest town to the proposed 320 megawatt plant. "That's pretty much the rhetoric going around here regarding Two Elk." |
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|  | Brodie Farquhar
has been covering the West for over 30 years, working in Colorado, Arizona, Kansas,
Washington, South Dakota and now Wyoming since 2000. He was a member of the first
Scripps Fellowship for Environmental Journalism class at the University of Michigan,
where he earned a master's degree in natural resource policy. He's also worked stints
in public relations for the Colorado School of Mines, The Nature Conservancy, Crested
Butte Mountain Resort and most briefly for Wyoming Democratic candidate Gary Trauner.
Brodie lives in Casper with wife Sharon, daughters Katie and Sarah, while son Eric
is stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan as a captain in the U.S. Air Force.
| | | "Does the River Run Downstream?" | | Close Elk Feedgrounds Before It's Too Late | | The Pine Beetle And Forest Fires | |
|  | Marguerite Herman, 57, moved to Wyoming 28 years ago as the first ever person to transfer to
the Cheyenne office of The Associated Press. (You were supposed to train here and move away.)
She grew up in an Air Force family, moving every year, and is still a little surprised to find
herself so stationary. She has a BA from (The) Colorado College, MAT from University of
Chicago and MA in journalism from the University of South Carolina.
She is wife to attorney George Powers and mother to Rosemary, Charlotte and Tom. Her abiding interests include
breastfeeding, knitting, good government, education, maternal-child health, New Mexican
chili and politics - especially politics.
| | | Wyoming's House of Inexperience | | Gordon Run Divides GOP | | Gov. Freudenthal To Seek 3rd Term? | |
|  | Jason Marsden has served as executive director of Wyoming
Conservation Voters and the WCV Education Fund since September 2001. He was born in a small
farming town in southern Minnesota but got to Sheridan in time to finish elementary school,
graduating from Sheridan High in 1990 and Harvard College, with a degree in English, in 1994.
He served as field director for the Wyoming Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign in 1994
before starting a seven-year career as a Casper Star-Tribune reporter, covering government,
the environment, the energy industry and the state's congressional delegation.
Jason won the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Region 8 Environmental Achievement Award
in 1998 for his coverage of the litigation and eventual cleanup of Casper's former Amoco
Refinery site, and has twice been honored by the Wyoming Wildlife Federation.
He serves on the boards of directors of the Equality State Policy Council, the Wyoming Chapter of the
Sierra Club and the Alliance for Historic Wyoming. In his remaining free time he studies
Dutch, spoils his two cats and pursues domestic tranquility with his partner of 10 years,
Guy Padgett, the two-term Casper city councilman and former mayor.
| | | Villain Enviros: The Conservationist as Myth Buster | | USDA's Grim Picture for Wyoming Ag | |
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WyoFile economics writer Samuel Western has spent 25 years
exploring the west. He's been a correspondent for the Economist of London since 1985, but his
stories have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, E-Magazine,
and High Country News. He's a contributing author to two books, The Next West, and Wild and
Fair (due out in March 2008). He's the author of Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River:
Wyoming's Search for its Soul, and A Random Census of Souls (due out December 2008).
Western specializes in economic history, ethical issues, and examining the human aspect of
shifting demographics.
Western lives in Sheridan with his black lab, Finn. His two children, Sally and Cyrus, are
away at school. His interests include literature of the land (from Virgil to Houseman to Heaney),
history all sorts, music, and cooking. He is a licensed Wyoming hunting guide.
| | | The Wyoming Baby Boom | | How Wyoming Could Cut My Heating Bill | | Recycling in the land of long haulage | |
|  | Deb Donahue is a lawyer and a wildlife biologist. A member of the
University of Wyoming College of Law faculty since 1992, she teaches Environmental Law, Public
Lands, Indian Law, and Native American Natural Resources Law. She spent 2002 on sabbatical in
New Zealand, studying biodiversity conservation policy. Donahue served as executive director
of the Wyoming Outdoor Council in 1983-85. She has worked for federal land management agencies,
the mining industry, law firms, a federal judge, and conservation organizations, including the
National Wildlife Federation in Alaska.
She is author of The Western Range Revisited: Removing
Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity (1999). In 2000 she was honored
as the Wyoming Wildlife Federation's Natural Resources Conservationist of the Year. In 2000
she was honored as the Wyoming Wildlife Federation's Natural Resources Conservationist of the
Year.
| | | Tropic Cascade: The Case For Wolves | | Winslow Friday's Eagle | | High Noon On The Range | | Do Elk Feedgrounds Violate Public Trust? | |
|  | Geoffrey O'Gara is an author and television producer based in
Wyoming. His books include A Long Road Home (Houghton-Mifflin), about his travels with the
1930s WPA guides; What You See in Clear Water (Knopf), about the battle between Indians and
whites over control of water in the West; and a number travel guides. He has written,
produced, and hosted programs for Wyoming Public Television since 1991. He has worked as
editor of High Country News, a bureau chief for the Casper Star-Tribune, and a freelance
writer for publications ranging from the New York Times to National Geographic Traveler.
Under pressure, O'Gara will confess that he is originally from California. He moved to Wyoming
in 1979 from Washington, D.C., and has lived in Lander since then. He has three semi-grown
children with his spouse, Berthenia Crocker.
| | | Lander Talks ... Wyofile Listens | |
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