Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Ben Goldfarb
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
How beavers make the desert bloom
‘I’m always looking for ways to keep water here, and the beaver do it for free.’
Posted inMarch 5, 2018: Drilling Chaco
In Oregon, a peculiar case for protecting the beaver
Using the Endangered Species Act, a novel strategy could protect keystone species.
Posted inNovember 13, 2017: Solace and Perspective
How to know what we don’t know about natural disasters
A new book foretells America’s next devastating earthquake.
Posted inAugust 7, 2017: Los Promotores
What the last eclipse tells us about the 19th-century West
A new book by a self-proclaimed umbraphile tells the story of a West in shadow.
Posted inJuly 24, 2017: Down the Dark Mountain
Why we should celebrate unlovely fish
An angler documents his pursuit of the uglier species.
Posted inMarch 20, 2017: The Tree Ring
Busting the tree ring
How a landmark investigation unraveled a Washington timber-poaching gang.
Posted inFebruary 20, 2017: Overdosed
Where wildlife is up against the wall
Donald Trump’s proposed border wall would devastate migrating animals.
Posted inArticles
A new journalism, past fear-mongering
Reporting solutions is a form of resistance in its own right.
Posted inArticles
A different boom-and-bust story
Bridging the here/elsewhere divide in a country grown accustomed to failure.
Posted inArticles
Will a dam save the pallid sturgeon, or doom it?
On the Yellowstone River, farmers and conservationists clash over controversial infrastructure.
Posted inArticles
Big steps for small schools
In the battle to train the next generation of rural Western leaders, schools are on the frontlines.
Posted inOctober 3, 2016: Purple Rain
Geologic vandalism, the return of the Blob and Glacier’s top dog
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
Food, food, everywhere, and not a bite to eat
Reforming America’s broken food and agriculture systems is possible, but it won’t happen overnight.
Posted inArticles
Incremental progress, rather than quick fixes, will help the Southwest overcome substance abuse
Anyone who’s lived in a rural community knows that talking about substance abuse can be nearly as hard as treating it. On federal fact sheets, addicts and overdose victims are faceless statistics; in small towns, they’re friends, neighbors, children, parents. Our criminal justice systems treat addiction like a moral failing, while our healthcare systems neglect its […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2016: Line of Descent
Columbia River ‘shadow tribes’ face a housing crisis
The feds have promised lodging at traditional fish camps — but haven’t delivered.
Posted inAugust 8, 2016: Line of Descent
Sex, death and spaghetti: Jim Harrison’s last writings
The curmudgeonly author’s last collection, published just weeks before his death, remains preoccupied with the joy of life.
Posted inArticles
It’s all about access
Rural healthcare solutions focus on connecting patients and providers.
Posted inJune 27, 2016: The New Advocates
The grand plan to save the Yellowstone River
Can one man’s pie-in-the-sky idea save one of the West’s most iconic and underloved rivers?
Posted inArticles
In Washington, the Nooksack 306 fight to stay in their tribe
An internecine battle rages over tribal membership and identity.