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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

The Dance to the Top of the Palm Tree, Bright Ntimba, Part I. 2021, oil on linen, 45 x 80 inches.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories

Reenvisioning the image of immigration

by Chandler Fritz February 1, 2025January 31, 2025

Artist and refugee Papay Solomon juxtaposes European painting with African ancestry.

Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories

A veteran transforms a legacy of violence into a campaign for restoration

by Alexander Lemons February 1, 2025January 31, 2025

How a former Marine found a road to repair.

Prairie dogs emerge from their burrow in a colony on American Prairie in Montana. Prairie dogs, once one of the most abundant animals on the prairie, now occupy 2% of their historic range.
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted

Why the West needs prairie dogs

by Christine Peterson January 1, 2025January 6, 2025

They’re among the region’s most despised species, but some tribes, researchers and landowners are racing to save them.

Tribal elders and landscape (Aaron Nesheim); cannabis leaf (Roberto (Bear) Guerra); Travel Plaza fire (Jerry Tom); maps (USGS and Flickr); documents from author’s research.
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted

Legal weed entrepreneurs promised a windfall from tribal lands. Then it fell apart.

by Judith Matloff December 17, 2024December 20, 2024

The Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone are still picking up the pieces from the failed cannabis cultivation venture.

Jade Stevens rests near Lake Putt on land in California’s Tahoe National Forest that is owned and managed by the 40 Acre Conservation League.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations

Can land repair the nation’s racist past?

by Adam Mahoney December 1, 2024November 26, 2024

California’s approach to Black reparations shifts toward land access, ownership and stewardship.

Remnants of the forest after the 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations

The aftermath of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fires

by Emily Withnall December 1, 2024November 26, 2024

Devastation is hard to face, but
turning away is harder.

Ryan Madros takes a boat full of children, teens and adults to this year’s culture camp upriver from Ruby, Alaska. Madros and his wife, Rachael Kangas Madros, played key roles in organizing culture camp this year.
Posted inIssues

Fish camp in Alaska – without the fish

by Julia O'Malley November 1, 2024October 31, 2024

Yukon River communities fight to maintain their salmon fishing traditions.

Western Yarrow, or Achillea millefolium, growing on a pocket prairie near Pullman, Washington.
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie

Your lawn could host an endangered ecosystem

by Kylie Mohr November 1, 2024November 8, 2024

In the effort to restore the Palouse Prairie, no project is too small.

Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote

On the road with Latino organizers in the swing states of the West

by Bernardo Ruiz October 1, 2024September 30, 2024

In Nevada and Arizona, Latinos make up nearly a third of all voters. What are they thinking this election year?

LaLo Montoya, director de participación cívica de Make the Road Nevada, hace campaña con un voluntario en un barrio del lado este de Las Vegas, Nevada, el pasado marzo.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote

El voto indeciso latino

by Bernardo Ruiz October 1, 2024October 4, 2024

De gira con organizadores en Arizona y Nevada.

Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote

Latino voting power is building in Yakima

by Natalia Mesa October 1, 2024September 30, 2024

Activists in central Washington focus on informing voters and getting them to show up to the polls.

Una pintura por la artista local, Maria G Rueda, cuelga en el vestíbulo del Centro Chinampa en Yakima, Washington.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote

Poder latino

by Natalia Mesa October 1, 2024October 4, 2024

En el centro del estado de Washington, los organizadores latinos están promoviendo el voto y eligiendo a sus propios candidatos

Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote

States own lands on reservations. To use them, tribes must pay.

by Anna V. Smith and Maria Parazo Rose September 16, 2024November 22, 2024

How schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions in 15 states profit from land and resources on 79 tribal nations.

The early morning sun shines through the Sonoran Desert landscape near the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona. According to the International Organization for Migration, the U.S.- Mexico border is the deadliest land route for migrants in the world.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing

The fatal flaw in the Border Patrol’s rescue program

by Tanvi Misra September 1, 2024September 5, 2024

The Missing Migrant Program is meant to prevent deaths. Instead, it may be causing them.

City, 1970 – 2022 © Michael Heizer. Courtesy of Triple Aught Foundation.
Posted inIssues

What to make of land art in the era of LandBack

by Savanna Strott and Joey Lovato September 1, 2024September 24, 2024

‘City,’ a massive outdoor sculpture in Nevada, took Michael Heizer 50 years to make. Today, it is met with a mixture of scrutiny and awe.

Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing

La falla fatal en las operaciones de rescate de la Patrulla Fronteriza

by Tanvi Misra September 1, 2024September 5, 2024

La agencia tiene la tarea de salvar a migrantes en peligro pero puede estar empeorando las cosas.

Picoso Farm in Gilroy, California, is still trying to recover from a series of devastating floods.
Posted inAugust 2024: In the Wake of the Floods

After historic floods, the safety net failed small farmers

by Sarah Trent August 1, 2024July 31, 2024

Climate disasters are killing the largest subset of California farms. Government programs are too.

Sleeping Buffalo and Medicine Rocks, Saco vicinity, Phillips County, Montana. October 1994
Posted inAugust 2024: In the Wake of the Floods

The vision of Little Shell

by Chris La Tray August 1, 2024July 31, 2024

How Ayabe-way-we-tung guided his tribe in the midst of colonization.

Wilson’s phalaropes eating brine flies at the Great Salt Lake.
Posted inJuly 2024

Wilson’s phalarope to the rescue

by Caroline Tracey July 1, 2024July 5, 2024

A new Endangered Species Act petition could trigger major conservation actions to save the West’s saline lakes.

A long-billed curlew in the grasslands near Hogan Reservoir in Park County, Wyoming, about 30 miles north of Cody.
Posted inJuly 2024

In search of the continent’s largest shorebird

by Priyanka Kumar July 1, 2024June 28, 2024

The elusive long-billed curlew finds refuge in fragmented grasslands.

Posts pagination

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