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High Country News

High Country News

A nonprofit independent magazine of unblinking journalism that shines a light on all of the complexities of the West.

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HCN has covered the lands, wildlife and communities of the Western U.S. for more than 50 years. Get to know the West better by signing up to receive HCN’s on-the-ground reporting and investigations in your inbox.

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Arts & Culture

Tribal Chairman James Phoenix said that Burning Man creates challenges for the nearby Paiute Pyramid Lake Tribe, including low-flying aircraft dipping into the water of Pyramid Lake.
Posted inArticles

What are the real impacts on Burning Man’s playa?

by Ollie Hancock September 12, 2023January 24, 2024

Viral attention on Black Rock City’s annual festival highlight environmental consequences.

Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice

My beloved lemon squeezer

by Marie Myung-Ok Lee September 1, 2023January 24, 2024

A simple tool becomes a form of self-defense.

Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice

Revisiting the Rock Springs Massacre

by Teow Lim Goh September 1, 2023January 24, 2024

In 1885, white coal miners in Wyoming Territory, murdered at least 28 Chinese men and ran the rest of the Chinese out of town at gunpoint. These artworks bring that history back to the present.

Posted inSeptember 1, 2023: Food Justice

Unsettling the Oregon Trail

by Kevin Craft September 1, 2023February 5, 2024

A poem by Kevin Craft.

A bison roams a hill at Golden Gate Park in San Francsico.
Posted inArticles

Grief, girls and the gross in Vauhini Vara’s new collection

by Hana Rivers August 28, 2023January 24, 2024

‘This Is Salvaged’ considers what unites, including death and survival.

Posted inArticles

What downwinders inherited at Trinity

by Sean J Patrick Carney August 21, 2023January 24, 2024

In the days of ’Oppenheimer,’ an exhibition advocates expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire

Things We Were Told About the Moon in School

by Dara Yen Elerath August 1, 2023February 5, 2024

A poem by Dara Yen Elerath.

Death, celebration or boredom typically serve as the catalysts for a good road trip; in “The Unknown Country,” it's a mix of all three.
Posted inArticles

A bumpy, interesting ride in ‘The Unknown Country’

by Jason Asenap July 28, 2023January 24, 2024

The film’s exploration of ‘Middle America’ is at its best when it lets Lily Gladstone take the wheel.

Kylee Howell owns Friar Tuck’s Barbershop on Helper’s Main Street.
Posted inArticles

Building queer visibility in rural Utah

by Brooke Larsen July 25, 2023January 24, 2024

A Q&A with barber and filmmaker, Kylee Howell.

Cast members of Wicoun gather with Larissa FastHorse at the chapel  at Placerville Camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

The Trojan horse of Native theater

by Nick Martin July 1, 2023January 24, 2024

Larissa FastHorse’s ‘The Thanksgiving Play’ made Broadway history. That’s a good thing — right?

Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

‘I will grip onto this space as hard as I can because we need it’

by Ryan Dorgan July 1, 2023January 24, 2024

#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.

Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

Sister Storms

by Jacqueline Balderrama July 1, 2023February 5, 2024

A poem by Jacqueline Balderrama.

Posted inJune 1, 2023: Seen and Unseen

‘It’s about supporting the queer community, uplifting people and bringing magic here’

by Luna Anna Archey June 1, 2023January 24, 2024

#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.

Posted inJune 1, 2023: Seen and Unseen

The Mirage of Marriage

by Karen Holmberg June 1, 2023February 5, 2024

A poem by Karen Holmberg.

Posted inArticles

Dispatch from the scaffolds: Native fishing culture on the Columbia River

by B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster May 8, 2023March 6, 2024

An Indigenous fisherman describes how to hook a salmon, the meaning of life and his faithful dog Sturg.

Posted inArticles

Orientalism and the West at Denver Art Museum

by Austin Corona May 4, 2023January 24, 2024

The museum’s ‘Near East to Far West’ exhibition asks critical questions about the colonial context of Western art but misses something important.

The small town of Neah Bay.
Posted inMay 1, 2023: Reemergence

The artist and the harpooner

by Josephine Woolington May 1, 2023June 14, 2024

In Micah McCarty’s art, the past and future are one, and the whales never left.

Posted inMay 1, 2023: Reemergence

The many ways to see a story

by Maggie Neal Doherty May 1, 2023January 26, 2024

Acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling returns with a new novel.

Posted inMay 1, 2023: Reemergence

Scarlet Paintbrush

by Garrett Hongo May 1, 2023February 5, 2024

A poem by Garrett Hongo.

Young college dropout, Xochitl (Ariela Barer), who lost her mother in a heatwave. The film stands firm in its sympathetic framing of the actions of the group, but it is also a revenge movie.
Posted inArticles

A climate heist and revenge movie

by Taylar Dawn Stagner April 28, 2023January 24, 2024

‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ stands firm in its sympathetic framing of its protagonists, and then asks you to evaluate yourself.

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