The Pioneer of Ruin in a Place No One Else Seems to Want, a Young Woman Builds a Home F Eature and Illustrations by Sarah Gilman September 17, 2018 | $5 | Vol
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DownwinDers’ opera | oreGon BUCKeT BriGaDe | hemp Goes mainsTream High Country ForN people whoews care about the west THE PIONEER OF RUIN In a place no one else seems to want, a young woman builds a home F eature and illustrations by Sarah Gilman September 17, 2018 | $5 | Vol. 50 No. 16 | www.hcn.org 16 50 No. | $5 Vol. 2018 17, September CONTENTS Editor’s note Pioneers, past and present A few weeks ago, I visited the Eagle Rock Shelter, a nearby archaeological site on the Gunnison River. According to the scientists and students from Western Wyoming Community College who have spent the last few summers excavating it, small groups of people lived here on and off for 13,000 years, even as the landscape changed from pine forest to today’s sagebrush and tamarisk. That’s hundreds of generations — mind-boggling in a place where locals now brag about having fourth- or fifth-generation roots. The shelter offered easy access to the river, a southern exposure that made for relatively warm winters, high bluffs from which to spot friends and foes, and the reliable presence of a dietary staple — rabbit. Cisco, Utah, the setting of this issue’s cover essay by longtime HCN contributor Sarah Gilman, lacks such SARAH GILMAN obvious amenities. In fact, it’s about as hardscrabble a place as you can find in the modern West. That’s partly what attracted Eileen Muza, Gilman’s 34-year-old FEATURE protaganist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who is trying to make a go of it there. It’s a classic Western story: 12 The Pioneer of Ruin Will she stay for a year or two and then vanish like yesterday’s sheepherders, oil drillers, filmmakers and On the cover In a place no one else seems to want, a young woman builds a home railroad workers? Or is she a true pioneer, someone By Sarah Gilman who will dig in and create something new and lasting Original illustration by Sarah Gilman. at a time when many Western communities are CURRENTS becoming warped by too-rapid growth? I’ve never doubted that a determined outsider can 5 The next act in the West’s atomic past Trinity test downwinders transform a place. Ed Marston, High Country News’ speak out in opera halls and Congress publisher from 1983 to 2002, accomplished exactly this. He and his wife, Betsy, who still works at HCN, 6 In the path of flames, far from help As the West burns, moved from New York City to tiny Paonia, Colorado, a town fields its own amateur firefighters in the 1970s, abandoning careers in academia and 7 The Latest: Catastrophic fires and forest management public television to embark on an unlikely journalistic path. Through his fierce writing and editing, fired 8 Republicans for hemp The crop could be a lifeline by original thinking and an eagerness to challenge for struggling agricultural communities power, Ed not only influenced a generation of aspiring 9 The Latest: San Juan County, Utah, and tourism journalists, but also tens of thousands of citizens and officials and the way they think of the West. Even DEPARTMENTS as he called out corruption and mismanagement, Ed insisted that the region could be something more than 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG a resource colony for the rest of the country. And he always believed that we could learn to work across our 4 LETTERS cultural divides. 10 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends After he retired, Ed dug into his chosen community, serving on the boards of our electric co-op Complete access 20 MARKETPLACE and other nonprofits, running for public office and to subscriber-only 23 WRITERS ON THE RANGE investing in local real estate. Early in the morning on content We should all be more like ‘the bluebird man’ By Crista Worthy Aug. 31, Ed died suddenly from complications related HCN’s website to West Nile virus. We are still shaken, and we are hcn.org 24 BOOKS deeply saddened. Digital edition Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth. Reviewed by Ben Goldfarb In an upcoming issue, we will explore Ed’s legacy hcne.ws/digi-5016 25 ESSAY in more depth. In the meantime, we’ve gathered some Relittering By Leath Tonino of his writings on our website (see hcne.ws/ Follow us ed-marston). I recommend reading them; they remain 26 PERSPECTIVE as incisive and original as the remarkable man who Native filmmakers are restoring cinematic narratives By Jason Asenap wrote them. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Ben Goldfarb —Paul Larmer, executive director/publisher 2 High Country News September 17, 2018 From our wEbSiTE: HCN.ORG Trending The issues leading Navajo On public Nation’s presidential election lands, The Navajo Nation — the largest reservation corporations in the U.S., stretching across three states profit — is a nation in flux. In late August, voters In a recent opinion participated in a primary presidential election column, Greg Zimmer- to weigh in on the future of the 300,000-citizen man, deputy director of tribe. The incumbent president, Russell Begaye, the Center for Western was ousted. Vice President Jonathan Nez led Priorities, a public-lands the 18-candidate field, and Joe Shirley Jr., a advocacy organiza- former two-term tribal president, earned the tion, argues that a second-highest number of votes. Nez and Shirley deal between the U.S. now advance to the tribe’s November general government and con- election. The top issues galvanizing voters this cessionaire Delaware year are the Navajo Nation’s economy, the North allows private precarious future of the Navajo Generating corporations to profit Station, clean water and a controversy over off the country’s most purged voter rolls. Younger voters see language, pristine landscapes. culture and tradition as dominant in the office Delaware North is of president. “Our priority is inspiring the next part of the expanding generation and giving them the resources they so-called public-private need,” Nez said. “It’s about working together, partnerships in nation- helping each other out, encouraging each other al parks, monuments, so we can make a better Navajo Nation.” Navajo Nation presidential candidate Jonathan Nez addresses constituents on the Navajo language wildlife refuges and ANTONIA GONZALES other American publicly Read more online: hcne.ws/navajo-election radio station KGAK after winning a majority of the votes in the primary election Aug. 28. Nez will face former tribal President Joe Shirley Jr. in the November general election. C AYLA NIMMO/AP Photo owned lands. Zimmer- man writes: “Setting aside the important question of whether we The end of the Paddling the Colorado’s should be privatizing Colorado River. headwaters park functions, it’s hard PETE MCBRIDE Photographer and filmmaker Pete McBride recently to defend an individual climbed atop his paddleboard and glided down the who has so blatantly headwaters of the Colorado River. It was June, and abused the public’s beneath his feet the Roaring Fork, a tributary of trust.” the mighty Colorado, was far from roaring. In fact, You say it wasn’t much more than a babbling brook. For decades, McBride has documented the changing BILL CHASE: “This issue state of his backyard river, the place where he says arose long before he learned to fish and swim as a child. In a recent (Interior) Secretary essay, he reflected on the dry summer and the Ryan Zinke came new normal it portends. “Shrinking snowpacks and around. As frustrating low waterways will eventually affect everyone. As as the copyright issue our watershed goes, so goes much of Colorado’s is in Yosemite, it’s a recreation-based tourist economy,” McBride wrote. decades-old problem.” “The white bathtub rings that already mark the L YNN JACKSON: “The West’s major reservoirs, lakes Powell and Mead, article neglects to are not only stark reminders of the water levels we mention Patago- once had; they also foreshadow what may come.” nia, REI, and other PETE MCBRIDE industrial-level recre- Read more online: hcne.ws/parched-river ation companies. Are they not profiting from massive restrictions and designations on “It seems federal lands, which reasonable that sends millions of 3 million people and all their Amount of acidic waste, in gallons, released a creature with new and shiny outdoor during the 2015 Gold King Mine spill near 10 million years equipment and toys Silverton, Colorado. into the area?” of generational knowledge would GRETCHEN CREMO: Number of sites, including Gold “The National Park 48King, that received Superfund status in 2016. make wise choices Service needs to about where it sets shoulder some of In 2015, Environmental Protection Agency the blame here for workers at the long-abandoned Gold King d o w n .” dropping the ball Mine near Silverton, Colorado, accidentally when the trademarks —Stephen R. Miller, were being registered.” released acidic waste into a nearby river. in “The arresting quiet Utah, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation of a crane migration Read more filed lawsuits seeking to recoup cleanup in Washington.” Read online: hcne.ws/ costs from the EPA, but now the agency is more online: hcne.ws/ concessionaire- attempting to dismiss the lawsuits. cows-among-cranes takeover and JODI PETERSON Sandhill cranes flying above Oregon’s Columbia National Wildlife Facebook.com/ Read more online: hcne.ws/no-consequences Refuge. CHRIS PARMETER highcountrynews Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 lETTERS Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. High Country News HUMAN REHAbilitatiON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Paul Larmer “Restoration’s crisis in confidence” EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (HCN, 8/6/18) is a breath of fresh air.