It’s easy to feel overwhelmed during difficult times, but HCN’s March issue finds good reason to hope. Our two feature stories highlight the resilience of both human relationships and damaged ecosystems, with a photo essay about the lessons learned from older lesbian couples, and a wide-ranging survey of “natural regeneration,” the way that native seeds can survive underground, sometimes for centuries, waiting for the right conditions to sprout and flourish. We rediscover the Japanese-language poetry written in the U.S. between the world wars and meet gay men who found new community in the desert. But challenges remain: The toxic levels of PFAS in drinking water are often hidden from consumers, our car culture is killing us and our communities, and first responders are scrambling to keep up as immigration patterns shift and the death toll rises. Meanwhile, activists work tirelessly to find homes for unhoused Indigenous people, while researchers track Pacific lamprey to ensure the survival of an ancient and elusive species.

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Can we learn to get along — not just with people, but with other species and cultures? In this issue, one of our feature stories looks into the contentious relationship the residents of Nome, Alaska have with musk oxen – photogenic animals with a tendency to trespass and attack people’s dogs. Wolves are being reintroduced to Colorado, but how do you compensate wolf-hating ranchers when their livestock gets eaten? In our investigative feature, we found that renewable energy projects in Washington are trampling tribal cultural resources. The Samish are rebuilding kelp beds in Puget Sound, while the Northern Cheyenne restore ancestral lands, hoping to someday return water to Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Wild animals sometimes adapt, even to wildfires. A geoengineering company’s “just do it” approach clashes with tribal sovereignty. If new rivers open for salmon in Alaska and Canada, will extractive gold mines follow? A one-room rural schoolhouse in Montana thrives, while cannabis growers meet boom-and-bust. A chef’s hybrid world helps inspire hybrid recipes. An essayist suggests that humans don’t have to behave like invasive species.

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In this special issue, High Country News reminds Westerners that it’s not too late to create a better climate future. One feature story takes a deep dive into the Tijuana Estuary on the California-Mexico border, showing that restoration is an ongoing process that can succeed when human beings devote themselves to it, for a lifetime if necessary. Indigenous leaders bring their knowledge to the climate change discussion, and the Smokehouse Collective works to rebuild Native food networks across Alaska. An 80-year-old electric co-op commits to decarbonization, and there are steps we can take to decarbonize the grid. California’s former insurance commissioner believes insurance companies and homeowners can take a more proactive approach to dealing with risk, and a diehard proponent of cooking with gas finally changes her mind. Environmental activists and labor unions achieve solidarity, and overlooked genres of literature, including Chinese tales about kung-fu heroes, can help grow a reader’s climate consciousness.

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The Endangered Species Act turns 50 this year, so HCN devoted a special section to this landmark environmental law. These stories take a hard look at its history, successes and failures, its complicated legacy in Indian Country, and possible strategies to prevent extinction altogether. Our features tackle other challenging issues: Conservationists are fighting English holly in Northwestern forests where the beloved Christmas symbol is becoming a pesky invasive. Meanwhile, Denver’s Globeville Elyria-Swansea neighborhood was long divided by Interstate 70, but residents fear that a project designed to reconnect the community will spur gentrification. Montana’s new laws encourage development, but will locals be able to afford the new housing? Utah’s Great Salt Lake is dying, but that hasn’t stopped the nearby industries from continuing to exploit it. Elsewhere, an unexpected encounter and a piece of jewelry spark a poet’s career, and a New Mexico lizard becomes a gay icon.

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The climate crisis affects everything, from where we live to what we eat to how we deal with crime. In Washington, extreme weather and COVID-19 pushed over-strained prisons to the brink, leading some to ask: Why not let people out? In Kasigluk, Alaska, buildings are succumbing to rising sea levels and melting permafrost, but relocating entire communities isn’t easy. Eureka, California, wanted to build affordable housing in parking lots, but opponents are exploiting an environmental law to fight back. The danger’s not over when the wildfire ends: Debris flows can be deadly. Trucking young salmon past dams seemed like a great idea, but what happens if the adult fish can’t find their way home? Can Green River, Utah’s famous melons survive climate change? Montana ranchers come together to start their own meatpacking facilities. An Indigenous writer reflects on everything his mentors taught him. Though DACA failed Tony Valdovinos, he still pursues his dreams. Just walking through a beloved landscape can help ease the pain of grief.

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Our feature story in this issue tells the harrowing story of two Peruvian brothers who came to Wyoming to be sheepherders, only to find themselves virtual prisoners, forced to labor under abusive conditions. In an excerpt from a new book, we learn how California’s Coachella Valley reinvented itself as an Arabian Nights fantasy to market the delicious dates it grew. Wildland fire dispatchers’ jobs are exhausting, stressful and woefully underpaid; invasive smallmouth bass threaten the Grand Canyon’s native fishes, and new legislation is bringing clean energy jobs to the West. You have to locate native bumblebees before you can protect them. A good snow year doesn’t mean a good snowpack if sublimation steals away the snow’s moisture, and renting in gentrified San Francisco is never easy. A writer consider Justice Scalia’s thoughts on waterways as she enjoys them; and digging around outdoor — whether for roly-poly bugs or dinosaur fossils — will open your eyes to wonder.

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This month, we learn about past injustices and ongoing environmental harms. An Asian American artist and a poet revisit the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre, when white miners murdered Chinese immigrants and burned down their homes. Wildlife isn’t safe from human noise or roads, even in national parks. Who really owns the West? Toxic emissions from oil and gas wells are hurting the Navajo Nation. The Black Farmers Collective seeks to encourage Black farmers in Washington, and Indigenous healers are finding new ways to treat the lingering trauma of the boarding school era. With climate change and wildfires causing a rise in overdoses, harm reduction workers try to keep people safe during times of environmental crisis. Why build a Biosphere 2 when we can’t even take care of Biosphere 1? A trickster spirit and a mischievous bird help a young queer man accept himself, while an Asian American woman with a neurodiverse son finds a way to cope with stress and racism on a family vacation out West.

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This month, HCN heats up with two very different fires: A genuine backcountry inferno, and the kind of political blaze that smolders and periodically threatens to blow up. Kylie Mohr follows two hikers who were caught in a Northern Cascades wildfire, while Leah Sottile looks at the “Greater Idaho” movement. Can outdoor recreation adapt to our changing climate, and why do so many white supremacists want to secede from Oregon? Elsewhere, we examine the 1872 law that governs hardrock mining, study the “forever chemicals” polluting our water, and learn how captive-born Mexican wolves are fostered in the wild. Can golf survive in the desert? Indian law experts discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Indian Child Welfare Act. Denver once bragged about being a “sanctuary city”; what happened? The Japanese American National Museum honors those who were incarcerated during World War II, and historians remember the hardworking children of Southern California’s Filipino immigrant farmers. Finally, we share the joy of late-summer salmon fishing in Alaska.

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This month, we take an in-depth look at life in Indian Country. HCN and ProPublica’s four-part package reveals how Colorado River Basin tribes in Arizona — including the Navajo, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Tohono O’odham — must fight for every drop of the water they were guaranteed by a 1908 Supreme Court decision. We consider the pros and cons of hunting bison just outside Yellowstone, and why Newtok, Alaska’s residents have had to wait decades to relocate while climate change destroys their village. And we feature a profile of Larissa FastHorse, the first-known Native American woman to have a play on Broadway, as well as a witty essay about one writer’s love-hate affair with Native romance novels. Elsewhere, U.S. and Central American climate migrants are fleeing to Baja California, and public education in the West is suffering from lack of funds. Did you know that elk and other wild animals have unique regional dialects? How can we help “horse girls” hold on to their wildness as they grow up?

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This June, we meet a remarkable woman: Letitia Carson, who was born into slavery and yet became the only Black woman known to secure a homesteading claim, despite Oregon Territory’s strict Black-exclusion laws. Now, Black Oregonians want to preserve the homestead site — without forgetting the Indigenous people who were forcibly removed from that land. A gifted photographer looks at rural life in Colorado’s North Fork Valley. Can geothermal energy help power the West? The Canada lynx is on the move as the snow it depends on recedes. Locals are becoming community scientists to protect the Salton Sea. HCN examines Wyoming Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman’s relationship with Indian Country, and we learn about making syrup from the Northwest’s bigleaf maple trees. Ohtani basketball is a Japanese American tradition in California, while queer culture flowers amid that state’s superbloom. We interview John Vallaint about Canada’s wildfires and his new book, Fire Weather. Jane Wong’s new memoir reveals how compulsive gambling tragically derailed an Asian American family — her own.

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