Innholdsfortegnelse for November Vol. 57, No. 11 i High Country News

High Country News is an independent, reader-supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization that covers the important issues and stories that define the Western U.S. Our mission is to inform and inspire people to act on behalf of the West’s diverse natural and human communities. High Country News (ISSN/0191/5657) publishes monthly, 12 issues per year, from 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Subscriptions to HCN are $45 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or editor@hcn.org, or call…

CONSERVATIONISTS restoring salmon along California’s North Coast have a mantra: A good coho salmon stream looks like a teenager’s bedroom — if teenagers discarded logs and branches instead of dirty clothes. Surveying a stretch of the Navarro River one morning last spring, Anna Halligan, a conservation biologist with Trout Unlimited, was delighted. “This is exactly what we want,” she said, examining the debris-filled water. The twigs, dirt and branches around a fallen redwood had slowed the river to a crawl and carved out a deep, sun-dappled pool underneath the trunk. In September 2020, Trout Unlimited’s partners spent days selecting a redwood and then carefully maneuvering it into the river to make it more coho-friendly. That tree has now vanished — crushed under this much larger redwood, likely carried downriver by…

ON THE EVENING OF JUNE 2, 2025, the City Council meeting in Pasco, Washington, was winding down when Councilor Leo Perales piped up from his seat on the wood-trimmed dais. “I know we’ve talked about fluoride a few times,” Perales said. “If we can just bring forward a vote in the next couple weeks to just remove it from our water without getting any staff presentation, or hearing, I think a lot of us feel that we should just take it out.” Perales had made local headlines a few months earlier when he released a plan to establish the Department of Pasco Efficiency, or “DOPE,” a deliberate echo of DOGE, the federal Department of Government Efficiency. Mayor Pete Serrano leaned toward his microphone. “I’m certainly in favor of removing it,”…

“When the power cut out around 5 p.m. on a hot July weekend in 2023, Jerry Baker had one thought”: “Here we go again.” First, Baker had to inform his nearly two dozen staff: We’re in power outage mode. Several counselors zipped around the camp, assessing electric loads and determining what could be connected to the generators. Off went the pool pump and swamp coolers — except the one in the infirmary — along with the air conditioning in several cabins. Baker is the founder of Camp Tuolumne Trails, a summer camp nestled in the Sierra foothills bordering Yosemite National Park. Each summer, it holds several sessions for dozens of adults and kids with disabilities. Usually, the outside world and its challenges seem far removed from the pine-covered campus. Campers…

YOU’RE GOOD “A few, for sure.” “About four times, actually. And my family’s rather small.” “Suicide has impacted my old friend group quite a bit.” “I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost family.” “My older brother.” “My sister’s youngest.” “I never thought I’d have that many people.” “Alcohol and depression, it comes hand-in-hand.” “One day the smiles stopped.” “I don’t mind talking about it.” “You guys are actually talking to the right person.” I’m interviewing fellow Indigenous metalheads at a heavy music festival on the Blackfeet Nation, with Russel Daniels (Diné and Ho-Chunk descent), a photographer who’s not into metal. “Plenty of times.” “I had attempted two times.” “Growing up here, you could feel very isolated.” “The truth is I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.”
 “Everywhere I went I just didn’t…

THIRTY YEARS AGO, in the summer of 1992, Jess Walter was a staff writer at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, when he got word of an armed standoff at an isolated mountain-top cabin in northern Idaho. Walter rushed to the scene, and his on-the-ground reporting recorded the incident that later became known as the Ruby Ridge standoff. It began when Randy Weaver — an Aryan Nations sympathizer with apocalyptic religious beliefs — failed to show up in court to face charges related to selling a sawed-off shotgun. In response, federal agents swarmed his cabin. At the end of the bloody 11-day standoff, Weaver’s wife, son and a U.S. marshal were all dead. Ruby Ridge galvanized the anti-government militia movement, and it continues to loom large in modern political discourse. The…

BEN RUPERT (DUCK VALLEY SHOSHONE-PAIUTE, WASHOE DESCENT) Treasurer of the Nevada Indian Territory Carson City, Nevada Nevada’s Indian Territory represents all 28 tribes across the state, and our mission is to change the world through eco-cultural tourism. We want visitors to travel the Great Basin in a meaningful and respectful way, learning our languages, stories and traditions while understanding that this land holds deep Indigenous roots. I believe tourism should move beyond merely sustaining culture to regenerating it, connecting people to the environment and to one another. Through our “Explore Native Nevada” app, travelers can visit our homelands, attend powwows and experience places through their original names and histories. My art, my dancing and even projects like our upcoming Togugunde Observatory are all about honoring the land and the heavens…

EVERY FALL AND WINTER, elk meander their way down from Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Mountains and congregate in the Silver Valley near Interstate 90. Sometimes they try to cross the four-lane freeway, walking, leaping or sprinting through the stream of cars and trucks. But those interactions rarely end well for the elk or the drivers. Now, however, there’s new hope for the animals and motorists passing through Silver Valley. Passionate locals have rallied to transform a defunct bridge in the small town of Osburn into a wild-life overpass. Collisions between motorists and wildlife kill more than 350 million animals and 200 humans and injure more than 26,000 people in the U.S. every year. They are also expensive, costing over $8 billion in property damage annually. But wildlife crossings aren’t cheap, either,…

In September, we held our fall board meeting in Boulder, Colorado. And once we were caught up on business, we got together with friends old and new to celebrate Andy Wiessner, who marks 40 years on the HCN board this year. (You’ll read more about Andy in a future “Dear Friends” column.) We want to thank our hosts at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado Boulder: Thomas Andrews, Tamar McKee, Brooke Neely and Ryan Lueck. Tamar, who manages programs and operations, is an anthropologist who has wandered all over the Western U.S. and Tibet; her degree in museum and field studies was shown in the incredible photos of Mexican cowboys and cowgirls that adorned the center’s walls. Brooke is a research fellow who specializes in the…

WASHINGTON If you plan on strolling through West Seattle’s Lincoln Park, you might want to carry a large umbrella. We’d recommend wearing a hat, too, but Seattle Parks and Recreation issued an “owl safety alert” after an aggressive hooter started attacking un-suspecting park-goers and flying off with their headgear. In a post on the agency’s Facebook page, one hiker reported that an owl swooped down and stole their brother-in-law’s hat while they were walking through Lincoln Park on their way to visit a troll. (No, the hikers didn’t accidentally wander into Narnia, there really is a giant troll named Bruun Idun out there, made by artist Thomas Dambo as part of the “Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King” project.) Rachel Schulkin, a spokesperson for Seattle Parks and Recreation, told…