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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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Features

Posted inOctober 2, 2023: The Dark Side of the Sheepherding Industry

The dark side of America’s sheep industry

by Teresa Cotsirilos October 2, 2023June 24, 2024

Sheepherders face wage theft, isolation, hunger and alleged abuse.

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

Wildlife and the inescapable impact of road noise

by Ben Goldfarb September 1, 2023May 8, 2024

The ‘blab of the pave’ disrupts animals’ lives everywhere, even in national parks.

Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire

Oregon’s Greater Idaho movement echoes a long history of racism in the region

by Leah Sottile August 1, 2023May 21, 2024

Instead of fixing Oregon, the Greater Idaho movement seeks to leave it. White supremacists are on board.

Burned-over forest in Washington near the origin of the Bolt Creek Fire, with Eagle Rock on the right and Townsend Mountain in the distance.
Posted inAugust 1, 2023: In the Line of Fire

‘We have fire all around us and we can’t get out’

by Kylie Mohr August 1, 2023April 23, 2024

What happened when two experienced hikers got caught in the Bolt Creek Fire.

Posted inArticles

In the Northern Rockies, grizzly bears are on the move

by Gloria Dickie July 10, 2023May 9, 2024

As grizzlies recover, they’re no longer content to roam within the boundaries contrived for them.

A well that’s part of the Hopi Arsenic Mitigation Project. Three-fourths of the Hopi citizens living on the reservation rely on well water tainted with high levels of arsenic, according to tribal leaders and studies conducted with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

‘The fight for our lives’: Arizona’s water regime limits the Hopi Tribe’s future

by Umar Farooq July 7, 2023January 24, 2024

A 45-year legal saga leaves the tribe fighting for their economic ambitions through water access.

Housing on the Chemehuevi Reservation. The tribe has about 1,250 members.
Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

Decades after the Colorado River flooded the Chemehuevi’s land, the tribe still doesn’t have its share

by Anna V. Smith, Mark Olalde and Umar Farooq July 5, 2023January 24, 2024

Nearly all of the tribe’s water remains in the river and ends up being used by Southern California cities.

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?

The Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project pipeline east of Window Rock, Arizona.
Posted inJuly 1, 2023: Waiting for Water

How Arizona squeezes tribes for water

by Anna V. Smith, Mark Olalde and Umar Farooq June 14, 2023January 24, 2024

A High Country News/ProPublica investigation shows that Arizona goes to unusual lengths in water negotiations to extract restrictive concessions from tribes.

Posted inJune 1, 2023: Seen and Unseen

The many legacies of Letitia Carson

by Jaclyn Moyer June 1, 2023January 24, 2024

An effort to memorialize the homestead of one of Oregon’s first Black farmers illuminates the land’s complicated history.

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

Tenacious specimens of the Grand Canyon

by Melissa L. Sevigny May 1, 2023January 24, 2024

In the 1930s, two women risked their lives to record a scientific survey of the region’s plants.

Posted inApril 1, 2023: The Path Forward

A deadly disease stalks deer and elk. Do predators help or hurt?

by Christine Peterson April 1, 2023January 24, 2024

In the Rockies, chronic wasting disease can devastate herds; scientists are looking for solutions.

Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts

‘Gold in the hills, but not for us’

by Tara Pixley and Vickie Vértiz March 1, 2023January 24, 2024

Scenes from California’s backyard petroculture.

Posted inMarch 1, 2023: Moving Parts

The 90-foot sentinel of Butte, Montana

by Leah Sottile March 1, 2023January 24, 2024

What does a statue dedicated to mothers reveal about women’s rights?

Posted inFebruary 1, 2023: The Reveal

Tending a remnant of home

by Jenise Miller February 1, 2023January 24, 2024

How a glass shelf connected a woman to what mattered most.

Posted inFebruary 1, 2023: The Reveal

Glen Canyon revealed

by Craig Childs February 1, 2023May 23, 2024

What comes next for Lake Powell?

Posted inJanuary 1, 2023: Ripple Effects

Can dam removal save the Snake River?

by Hayley Austin and Anna V. Smith January 1, 2023January 24, 2024

See the river as the climate changes, development continues and consequences grow with inaction.

Posted inDecember 1, 2022: Beyond Illusion

An expedition through Kim Stringfellow’s Mojave

by Meg Bernhard December 1, 2022January 24, 2024

The artist’s transmedia project highlights the vitality of the desert’s many histories.

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