End of the Line

END OF THE LINE

Vol. 53 / February 2021 Special report A siege with Tenacious Unicorns No. 2 • hcn.org on coal Western roots have a ranch EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Greg Hanscom INTERIM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Katherine Lanpher ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling FEATURES DIRECTOR McKenna Stayner MANAGING DIGITAL EDITOR Gretchen King ASSOCIATE EDITORS Emily Benson, Paige Blankenbuehler, Graham Lee Brewer, Maya L. Kapoor PHOTO EDITOR Roberto (Bear) Guerra ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey ASSISTANT EDITORS Jessica Kutz, Carl Segerstrom, Anna V. Smith EDITOR AT LARGE Betsy Marston COPY EDITOR Diane Sylvain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Nick Bowlin, Elena Saavedra Buckley, Ruxandra Guidi, Michelle Nijhuis, Jonathan Thompson CORRESPONDENTS Leah Sottile, Sarah Tory EDITORIAL FELLOW Jessica Douglas EDITORIAL INTERNS Surya Milner, Wufei Yu Empty coal cars stretch along the railroad tracks on the flatlands near the Boardman Power Plant, outside Boardman, DIRECTOR OF PHILANTHROPY Oregon. The shadow of the plant’s central chimney, now idle, is visible in the foreground. Sage Brown / HCN Alyssa Pinkerton SENIOR DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Paul Larmer CHARITABLE GIVING ADVISOR Clara Fecht DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES Hannah Stevens, Carol Newman DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT & MARKETING Gary Love EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER COORDINATOR Laura Dixon IT MANAGER Alan Wells DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Erica Howard ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT Mary Zachman CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Kathy Martinez Know CUSTOMER SERVICE Karen Howe, Shannon Kinne, Mark Nydell, Pamela Peters, Tammy York GRANT WRITER Janet Reasoner the FOUNDER Tom Bell

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Brian Beitner (Colo.), John Belkin (Colo.), Seth Cothrun (Ariz.), Jay Dean (Calif.), West. Bob Fulkerson (Nev.), Wayne Hare (Colo.), Laura Helmuth (Md.), Samaria Jaffe (Calif.), High Country News is an independent, reader-supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization that covers the important Nicole Lampe (Ore.), Marla Painter (N.M.), 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 Bryan Pollard (Ark.), Raynelle Rino (Calif.), natural and human communities. High Country News (ISSN/0191/5657) publishes monthly, 12 issues per year, from 119 Grand Estee Rivera Murdock (Colo.), Andy Wiessner Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes (Colo.), Florence Williams (D.C.) to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for DIRECTOR EMERITUS Luis Torres (N.M.) submission guidelines. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 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 [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.

2 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Brigida Blasi Laramie, Wyoming

Jessica Douglas Bend, Oregon @jessicadd29_

Jane C. Hu Seattle Remembering coal @jane_c_hu

THIS MONTH, WE TAKE A LONG LOOK at the end of an era: the half-century when coal defined Jessica Kutz the energy economy of the West. Lights burned, rivers were diverted and subdivisions boomed, all Tucson, Arizona thanks to coal. But as Jonathan Thompson explains in this month’s “Facts & Figures,” the “Big Buildup” @jkutzie is over, and what he calls “the Big Breakdown” is on. The transition will be felt across the West, from workers who need to find new jobs to communities whose longtime residents are leaving to find work.

In this special issue, Jessica Kutz profiles Nicole Horseherder, a Diné environmental activist who Rosalyn LaPier has worked for decades to move the Navajo Nation away from extractive energy, freeing it from the Missoula, Montana often-unfair contracts that left the Navajo and Hopi landscapes depleted, dry and dusty. Horseherder @RozLaPier remembers the once-reliable springs and seeps of her childhood, before the Navajo Aquifer’s water was used to slurry coal. She wants to see her community’s groundwater restored.

Still, many Westerners remember coal fondly. In a photo essay by contributor Sage Brown and staff writer Kate Schimel Carl Segerstrom, we meet some of the people who made the coal-fired Boardman Power Plant in eastern Santa Fe, Oregon hum for 40 years. Last October, they began decommissioning the plant. Dave Rodgers, the New Mexico plant manager, recalls going to downtown Portland and seeing the bright lights there, knowing he had @kateschimel something to do with it: “There’s nothing better in life than to eat, drink and know that your work is good.”

It seems hard to believe now, but small coal-mining towns in Wyoming once sought out miners from Carl Segerstrom Europe, Japan, China and Korea. The majority of the tiny town of Dana, however, was made up of Spokane, Washington Black American coal miners, recruited by James E. Shepperson, a Black community leader from @carlschirps Washington state. It’s a complex tale, brought to life by historian Brigida Blasi.

Elsewhere in this issue are other surprising stories of empowerment. Eric Siegel takes us inside the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch in Colorado. It’s a remarkable community: queer, transgender-owned and Anna V. Smith anti-fascist — an alpaca ranch with colorful Pride banners and an AR-15 on the wall. Portland, Oregon @annavtoriasmith One of the reasons I love Eric’s story is that it challenges our assumptions about the politics of community in the rural West, where many are forging new — and sometimes uncomfortable — paths to more genuine lives. Unfortunately, that message of tolerance wasn’t shared on Jan. 6, when an extremist mob breached the U.S. Capitol. While the rioters hailed from all over the country, they Alex Trimble Young were echoing resentments sparked in the West long ago. Carl Segerstrom talked to terrorism experts Phoenix who trace the carnage in Washington, D.C., back to its roots in the West. It’s necessary and unsettling reading.

Stay safe out there.

Katherine Lanpher, interim editor-in-chief

FEBRUARY 2021 3 The smokestacks of the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona, before they came down in December FEATURE (above). Cassidy Araiza / HCN

Life After Coal 28 At the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, an LGBTQ+ community of gun-loving anti-fascist alpaca ranchers in Colorado’s Diné activist Nicole Horseherder’s long quest for Wet Mountain Valley, Bonnie Nelson displays her sniper equity from the rise and fall of the coal economy. rifle, a Springfield AR-15 (right). Luna Anna Archey / HCN

BY JESSICA KUTZ | PHOTOS BY CASSIDY ARAIZA

Access to subscriber-only content: ON THE COVER hcn.org A train loaded with coal travels through West Texas. Since its peak hcne.ws/digi-5203 in 2007, coal use by U.S. power plants has dropped by half. Dan Winters Follow us @highcountrynews

4 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE THE BREAKDOWN OF COAL

Queers, alpacas and guns 14 The Big Breakdown 20 A half-century ago, the Big Buildup An LGBTQ+ community forges its path in a conservative Colorado town. transformed the West; now, it’s all BY ERIC SIEGEL | PHOTOS BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY coming to an end. FACTS & FIGURES BY JONATHAN THOMPSON

New wind projects power 22 local budgets in Wyoming When the pandemic hit the fossil fuel industry, towns expected big deficits. Instead, some got major windfalls. BY JANE C. HU

As a coal plant closes, 24 workers reflect “The people here made the plant. What we did is something that was needed.” PHOTOS BY SAGE BROWN TEXT BY CARL SEGERSTROM

Mountaintop removal 35 threatens traditional Blackfoot territory Stop the Grassy Mountain coal project before it starts. PERSPECTIVE BY ROSALYN LAPIER When citizens will pay more 7 REFLECTION & REVIEW As state aid shrinks in Wyoming, How Wyoming’s Black 36 one community votes to fund Is it time to decolonize 40 coal miners shaped a new hospital. the housing market? their own history WHAT WORKS BY CARL SEGERSTROM In California, COVID-19 is exacerbating Many early Wyoming coal towns housing inequities. Indigenous activist had thriving Black communities. A siege with Western roots 8 Jackie Fielder believes she has a PERSPECTIVE BY BRIGIDA R. BLASI and consequences solution. History points to a volatile future. Q&A BY JESSICA DOUGLAS #iamthewest 48 BY CARL SEGERSTROM Retired coal miner, rancher Remembering 42 Mary Barclay, Paonia, Colorado Bears Ears is just 10 William Kittredge BY ABBY HARRISON the beginning The beloved teacher and writer was Indigenous voices are long overdue preoccupied with the particular. in management of public land. PERSPECTIVE BY KATE SCHIMEL DEPARTMENTS BY JESSICA DOUGLAS AND GRAHAM LEE BREWER Finding meaning on 44 Joan Didion’s frontier 3 EDITOR’S NOTE ‘A reconciliation’ 12 With the release of a new collection, After decades of battling the 86-year-old author returns 6 LETTERS misinformation, the Confederated to her old work and a vast, Salish and Kootenai Tribes complicated legacy. 13 THE LATEST finally regain the lands of the REVIEW BY ALEX TRIMBLE YOUNG National Bison Range. 16 50TH ANNIVERSARY BY ANNA V. SMITH 17 DONORS / READER PROFILES

46 HEARD AROUND THE WEST

FEBRUARY 2021 5 LETTERS nalism that respects the reader’s live with in an isolated commu- ability and desire to learn all sides nity, you experience being part of an issue. of a tapestry that must consider Richard Margolin and support the well-being of all Evergreen, Colorado inhabitants. The second-home owners are impoverished by not Nick Bowlin’s piece “Second Cit- earning and enjoying member- izens” was an absolute gem. The ship in this tapestry. High Country News is dedicated to independent reporting and emotion invoked Thanks so much for doing this journalism, informed debate and discourse in the were beautiful, and I want to thank careful reporting over the past year. public interest. We welcome letters through Bowlin from my heart for stirring Diane Curlette digital media and the post. Send us a letter, find us it up. As someone who lived in Boulder, Colorado on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for five years (and moved around a lot) Thank you for the deeply reported I understand the dynamic intrica- article by Nick Bowlin. The Gun- cies of a seasonal town and what nison Valley may be the sharpest RICH AND UPLIFTING ISSUE newcomers using their wealth to home means to us. I was shocked illustration of the changes in the Such a rich January edition impose their agendas on the long- at how the county responded to mountain West that were wors- deserves praise. Kudos to the time small business people, the the second-home owners, but sub- ened by COVID-19. Clearly, it was a “Rebel Constables,” each one of hard-working service workers and stantially more disturbed at their mistake, in an effort to prevent the them, and to Gabriel Schivone for the ranchers who have made long- sense of entitlement; their produc- spread of the virus, to try to ban excellent coverage. It did me such term commitments to the com- tion of a “naughty” list by was out- “outsiders” from using their second good to read this story. And I was munity. We see too much of this all right wicked and delusional. I want homes in Gunnison County. How- on the edge of my chair waiting for over this country, but it comes out to thank Bowlin for not imposing ever, it was the absence of an effec- election results, fuming over the in vivid relief in these small towns. bias. The final three paragraphs tive national policy that encour- attempted big-money takeover of Janet Rahmani of the article are something we all aged the spread of the infection the Gunnison County Commis- Colorado Springs, Colorado should sink into a couch or chair across state and local boundaries sion (“Second Citizens”). Thank or special place and cogitate about and left local government with you, Nick Bowlin. Both are excel- I started a two-year subscription from time to time. few good choices. The friction lent and uplifting pieces, showing in response to the sterling report- Ryan (Last name withheld between locals and wealthy out- that humanity and the good of ing you provide. I’ve sporadically by request) siders is now made worse. the commons can prevail. read articles from HCN for many Phoenix, Arizona Mark Dillen Linda Maio years, but the tipping point to con- Denver, Colorado Berkeley, California vert me to a subscriber came after My sincere and respectful con- reading Nick Bowlin’s piece on the gratulations for the fine article SALTON SEA SECOND-HOME OWNERS political efforts of second-home on the Gunnison election. As an I watched the Salton Sea go from Thank you for the excellent Jan- owners in Crested Butte against aged near-native of the area who a fun place to boat and fish to a uary 2021 issue. Every article was COVID restrictions. While I have still carefully reads the Gunni- wasteland of dead fish and dreams. pertinent to one or another of the my own point of view, I have a son Country Times, I can verify The article (“Sea change,” Janu- pressing problems here in the great appreciation and appetite your descriptions and revelations, ary 2021) is a rerun of a rerun of a West. I especially liked the article for journalism that presents all and appreciate your deft manner rerun about broken promises from and photos by Nick Bowlin and sides. I appreciate having my of educating us all on the local a dysfunctional state government. Luna Anna Archey in your fea- views challenged and being made background issues. I found your California is never going to spend ture story, “Second Citizens.” It’s aware of how all sides are think- descriptions to be fair and bal- mega-millions on the Salton Sea; very evident that we need to find ing. This has become increasingly anced as well — difficult to man- there is no financial incentive to a way to bring longtime residents difficult to find in today’s media age in such a diverse environment. do so. Environmental monies will of rural communities together environment of sensationalism, I’ve often reflected on the lack be spent on the Central Valley’s with the newer, wealthier resi- but HCN does it very well. I hope of minorities in our local schools water issues, or other areas that dents or part-time residents. It my subscription can help con- and communities decades produce tax income. But, really, is not a good thing to see those tinue to support informed jour- ago. Now there is a larger non- who’s complaining? Not the mil- white minority group, and Black lions of dead fish or other wildlife, CORRECTIONS Lives Matters in Crested Butte. or the poor or undocumented fam- In our story, “Black cowboys reclaim their history in the West,” (October Local bookstore owner Arvin ilies that surround the sea. In the 2020), we incorrectly referred to the Thyrl Latting Rodeo Spectacular Ramgoolam’s remarks at the end end, the Salton Sea will become a as the Thorough Laddins rodeo. In addition, Jerrae Walker’s father was are very true. When your very huge environmental hazard, and not part of the Thyrl Latting Rodeo Spectacular, but rode in the same existence — physically, finan- the poor (who have no voice) will circuit. In our story, “Students and faculty urge deeper look at land-grant cially, spiritually and emotionally survive the best they can. legacy” (January 2021), we spelled David Ackerly’s last name incorrectly. — is dependent on the actions and Vincent Macy We regret the errors. support of the other humans you Chula, Georgia

6 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS WHAT WORKS

When citizens will pay more As state aid shrinks in Wyoming, one community votes to fund a new hospital.

BY CARL SEGERSTROM

KARI DEWITT OF PINEDALE, Wyoming, In response to energy revenue and coronavirus- The Sublette County Rural Health Care District needed a blood transfusion. It was 2014, and related shortfalls, Gov. Mark Gordon, R, slashed purchased 7 acres of town ballfields adjacent to the current Pinedale Medical Clinic. The fields will be the site her placenta had partially ruptured; she and spending by 10% in July. He’s since proposed of the future hospital. Ryan Dorgan / HCN her unborn son were in critical condition. But further measures that reduce state funding by Pinedale has no local hospital, only a town clinic, a half-billion dollars, including a $135 million so she couldn’t get the help she required there. cut to the Wyoming Department of Health. In Sublette County was forced to reckon with its DeWitt, a theater producer who leads the addition, direct distributions from the state dependence on other communities’ medical Pinedale Fine Arts Council, had to wait 45 to local governments have decreased by more facilities. minutes for a medi-flight plane to transfer her than $50 million since 2015 — a 35% drop. “We The “yes” vote raises property taxes by $1 for to a hospital in Idaho Falls, over 100 miles away. are going to have to abandon some of our towns every $10,000 in value and relies on local and Within three minutes of her arrival, she gave because we will not be able to afford upkeep federal funding: a $20 million commitment from birth — and received the blood she needed. on our roads and sewers,” Gordon told a state the county and an anticipated $24-$25 million This year, DeWitt successfully campaigned to appropriations committee in July. loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. pass a ballot measure that will bring a hospital The cutbacks will hit rural communities The district plans to build a new wing onto to Pinedale, in Sublette County. Now, nobody hardest. Godby likened small-county finances the existing Pinedale clinic; officials expect in her community will face the excruciating to the board game Battleship: Bigger cities and construction to wrap up in late 2022 or early uncertainty she experienced when her son was counties, like the big ships in the game, can 2023. The expansion will add eight hospital born. “I know we’re in the ‘Wild West,’ ” DeWitt withstand several hits and stay afloat, while rooms, clinical and surgical facilities, and 46 said. “But it’s not the 1800s.” smaller communities can be sunk by just a beds for long-term care — nearly doubling the More than a dozen Wyoming communities, couple shots. “We’re getting closer and closer existing capacity in Sublette, Sweetwater and including Sublette County, raised or renewed to the threshold where cities and towns can’t Teton counties. local taxes in November 2020. In addition to the function,” he said. The new facility will be a “critical access new hospital, the taxes will fund water system hospital,” a federal designation created to repairs, road and bridge maintenance, and a new SUBLETTE COUNTY RESIDENTS have been financially support rural hospitals. This will allow museum. At the same time, Wyoming is facing talking about the need for a local hospital for it to receive higher payment rates from insurers, major budget deficits as the fossil fuel economy — more than a century. In 1915, a newspaper including Medicare and Medicaid, than the clinics the primary source of state revenue — contracts. headline announced that one was going to be could charge. That will help the health district, Now Wyoming communities have to figure out built in Marbleton. It wasn’t. In 1961, Pinedale which has been operating with thin financial how to get by with shrinking state support. and Big Piney feuded over which town would margins. Having a local hospital will also reduce Even as Wyoming voters raised local taxes, get a hospital — but neither did. expensive ambulance rides out of the county by they elected staunch anti-tax conservatives The latest effort, the 2020 ballot measure, more than 20%, according to clinic data. to the state Legislature. That may seem like a passed by a healthy 20% margin. Unlike other For DeWitt, the approval of the new hospital strange juxtaposition, but leaving new taxes up recent failed attempts, the current plan got more was a sign that the community recognized the to municipalities and counties rather than the support because it included the local senior need for better health care and takes pride in its state aligns with the Libertarian-minded ideal care center and had financial backing from the ability to care for its residents. It’s also a reminder of limited government embraced by many in county, said Emily Ray, the communications that some things are worth paying for: “I’m not Wyoming, said Rob Godby, an economist at the coordinator for the Sublette County Rural sure there’s anything besides a hospital that can University of Wyoming. Health Care District. This fall, when nearby raise taxes here,” DeWitt said. “But at a basic level, Meanwhile, state budget cuts are underway. hospitals filled up with COVID-19 patients, you know you need a hospital.”

FEBRUARY 2021 7 An occupation sympathizer from Caldwell, Idaho, looks right,” said Daniel McCool, a political science out over Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during the 2016 occupation. Shawn Records professor at the University of Utah. Even though those “rights” were privileges in the legal sense, the perception that they were rights, and that they were being taken away, fueled the original not their tactics, was a bevy of Western legislators, Sagebrush Rebels, McCool said. “The roots of the who lent the movement legitimacy by supporting Sagebrush Rebellion were when they no longer Trump’s baseless election-fraud claims. got what they wanted,” he said. “There’s a direct Meanwhile, one of the most visible figures in line from there to the Bundy groups active today.” the anti-federal government movement in the Entitlement isn’t the only feature today’s anti- Western U.S., Cliven Bundy, expressed dismay government protesters — who snapped selfies, on Facebook that President Trump didn’t stick grabbed trophies and strolled casually through to his guns after Trump issued a half-hearted the Capitol after overcoming police barricades message calling for a peaceful end to the — have in common with the original Sagebrush Capitol's occupation. Rebels. They also share an alliance with the The anti-government occupations Republican Party and a lack of accountability bookending the rise and fall of Trump’s for breaking the law. None of the original presidency show the mainstreaming of right- rebels were prosecuted, and their movement wing extremism in the United States. They faded with the election of Ronald Reagan, who also portend future conflicts here in the West. publicly backed their anti-regulatory ideology. As President Joseph Biden takes charge of Reagan showed his support by installing Interior the federal government and its vast Western Secretary James Watt, who weakened many of landholdings, he is entering an already-delicate the federal regulations they chafed against. situation, where armed extremist groups stand ANALYSIS ready to rise up against the federal government. FAR-RIGHT TERRORISM is the most prevalent form of terrorism in the U.S., according THE WESTERN U.S. ISN’T THE ONLY PLACE to the FBI. Reporting by Reveal News and Type where anti-government sentiment festers, but Investigations found that right-wing extremism A siege with here the wounds are open, frequently endured during the Trump administration has and historically recent. Violence and the threat become more common and far more deadly. Western of violence in the region occur within the In the West, right-wing extremism and the context of a nation founded on the genocide militia movement have shifted their focus roots and of Indigenous people. Leaders of anti-federal from the federal government to other targets, movements include factions that are specifically like anti-fascist activists and state and local consequences anti-Indigenous. In defending his right to graze governments, according to the Anti-Defamation cattle on federal land in Nevada — a claim he League. History points to a volatile future. successfully defended at Bunkerville in 2014, The explanation for this shift in target is when federal authorities withdrew after being simple: Anti-federal extremists found common BY CARL SEGERSTROM outgunned by militiamen — Bundy argued that cause with Trump’s presidency as he promised to his claim to the land was more legitimate than “drain the swamp,” catered to racist ideologies and the Southern Paiutes’ because “they lost the war.” flirted with QAnon conspiracy theorists. He and This white-plus-might-makes-right sentiment his administration acted directly in the interest of ON JAN. 6, FIVE YEARS AND FOUR DAYS is a pervasive feature of Western mythology and Western factions within the right-wing extremist after armed militiamen took over the Malheur cowboy culture. Over the last half-century, anti- movement, including the Bundys. In 2018, National Wildlife Refuge, a remote federal government leaders have rallied to that image Trump pardoned Dwight and Steven Hammond, wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon, for 41 days, as control over the West’s natural resources whose imprisonment for felony arson on public supporters of President Donald Trump stormed became more contested. The original Sagebrush lands helped spark the Oregon standoff in 2016. and briefly occupied the United States Capitol in Rebellion of the mid-to-late-1970s — which No attempts were made during his administration Washington, D.C. inspired the modern Bundy-led standoffs but were to enforce federal law by rounding up Cliven It’s not hard to trace the links between Malheur not nearly as paramilitary — came in response Bundy’s cattle, which continue to illegally graze and Washington: Familiar insignia, instigators to federal public-land laws like the Federal Land on federal public lands in Nevada. And the and ideologies fueled both anti-government Policy and Management Act, Wilderness Act and Bureau of Land Management recently restored actions. Extremist leaders and movement Endangered Species Act, which increasingly the Hammonds’ public-land grazing rights in regulars from the Western U.S., including former restricted how natural resources could be used. Oregon, despite their record of endangering Washington State Rep. Matt Shea, who supported Those restrictions were seen as federal employees and committing arson. the efforts from afar in Spokane, and recent unconscionable overreach by rural Westerners Those actions — and the inability of federal U.S. Senate candidate Jo Rae Perkins, R-Ore., who were accustomed to using public-land prosecutors to secure convictions for leaders who joined the crowd that laid siege to the Capitol, resources as they wished. “The hardest thing of the Bunkerville and Malheur occupations, helped fuel the melee. Backing their message, if to do in American politics is to withdraw a who clearly threatened federal agents and held

8 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS federal land at gunpoint — emboldened anti- in Washington, D.C., demonstrators in Salem, next. History tells us that any attempts at an government extremists. After the acquittals, Oregon, made a sort of watered-down test run. ambitious federal public-land policy will be met the movement felt vindicated and victorious. On Dec. 21, protesters demonstrating against with right-wing resistance. “It’s a very heady thing to be involved in,” said public health restrictions broke down doors And yet there are hopeful signs in the region, Betsy Gaines Quammen, the author of American at the state Capitol and attacked journalists including the site of the last Bundy occupation Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in covering their rally. Since then, reports have in Burns, Oregon. Collaboration and community the West. “It was pivotal in empowering this emerged that they gained access to the building conversations around land management, both movement and laid the groundwork for what with aid from Republican state Rep. Mike before and since the 2016 occupation, blunted we saw (on Jan. 6 in the Capitol),” she said. Nearman, a claim that draws comparison to local support for the extremists who descended While the Trump era has empowered anti- accusations that federal police officials aided the on the small eastern Oregon town. According to government extremists in new and dangerous crowds that entered the U.S. Senate and House. Peter Walker, a University of Oregon geographer ways, it has offered some relief to the public- While no one knows whether Trump’s who chronicled the occupation and aftermath in land employees in the West who often bear the departure from office will be a source of continued his book Sagebrush Collaboration: How Harney brunt of extremist ideologies. Data collected unrest, history indicates that future threats likely County Defeated the Takeover of the Malheur by Public Employees for Environmental lie in the West and its federal public lands. Biden’s Wildlife Refuge, one local rancher told him: Responsibility (PEER), a group that supports pledges to act on climate change and restore Bears “Collaboration is what inoculated us from the public-land reforms and agency employees, Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two national Bundy virus.” found that threats against federal employees monuments that were shrunk by Trump, could The community embraced a far more and facilities dropped precipitously following spark conflict. “By simply doing their job, the democratic and peaceful approach than the Trump’s election. In 2017, the BLM recorded a 25% Interior Department will create more potential “revolution” promised by the Bundy-led militants, reduction in such incidents, the lowest number flashpoints,” said Aaron Weiss, the deputy director Walker told Oregon Quarterly. “Harney County since 1995. The Bundys didn’t see the federal for the Center for Western Priorities. “Being good (has) returned to the much less glamorous, time- government under the Trump administration as stewards means rounding Bundy cattle up. They consuming, sometimes tedious but often effective the enemy, said Jeff Ruch, the former executive can’t continue to coddle these extremists.” work of sitting across the table with people of director and current Pacific director of PEER. Now, the West and rest of the country are left different viewpoints to find mutually beneficial, “The administration acted in concert with the wondering where these tensions will flare up practical solutions to shared problems.” violent movement’s demands,” he said.

WITH THE TARGET NO LONGER on the federal government’s back, anti-government This white-plus-might-makes-right extremists in the West have aimed their tactics at left-wing protesters and at state and sentiment is a pervasive feature of Western local governments. Throughout the Trump administration, the president’s supporters mythology and cowboy culture. went to Portland, Oregon, ready to brawl with locals and anti-fascists, who countered their demonstrations and often obliged their violent impulses. Members of the Three Percenters vowed to support Oregon state legislators who fled the state to avoid a vote on climate change legislation in 2019, including Sen. Brian Boquist, who said that if the state police wanted to arrest him for fleeing his legislative duties, they should “send bachelors and come heavily armed.” Recently, right-wing extremists have found a new cause: the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent public health measures, such as business closures and mask mandates. Western extremist groups like the Three Percenters and Ammon Bundy’s newly formed People’s Rights organization have been “seizing on the pandemic and trying to build political power, mainstream their beliefs and build public trust,” said Amy Herzfeld-Copple, the deputy director of the Western States Center. Ammon Bundy, who has played a prominent role in protests against public health orders, was arrested twice this summer for disrupting the Idaho Legislature. Rioters break into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, A couple of weeks before the insurrection in Washington, D.C. Win McNamee / Getty Images

FEBRUARY 2021 9 Clark Tenakhongva, vice-chairman of the Hopi Tribe, photographed near Hotevilla-Bacavi, Arizona, in January. Jolene Yazzie / HCN

REPORTAGE or inside the new administration. and printed on bumper stick- Biden has pledged to work toward ers, lawn signs and billboards, protecting 30% of the country’s messages advocating either for land and oceans by 2030. Tribal or against the monument dotted nations and communities have every pocket of southeastern Utah. Bears Ears is just always asserted that their ties to For Indigenous peoples, both and knowledge of the land should inside and outside of Utah, the the beginning be consulted when land-manage- conflicts were only the most recent ment decisions are made. That’s a in a long history of colonial theft Indigenous voices are long overdue notion likely familiar to Biden. and cultural genocide. Five tribes in management of public land. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal were involved in the Bears Ears Coalition, a group of tribal govern- Inter-Tribal Coalition, which were BY JESSICA DOUGLAS AND GRAHAM LEE BREWER ments, worked with the Obama consulted in the monument’s estab- administration to create the origi- lishment, and three of them — the nal boundaries of Bears Ears. The Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni and partnership demonstrated an the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe — had unprecedented reliance on tribal been forcibly removed to reserva- LONG BEFORE FORMER But tribal leaders say that returning consultation for the federal govern- tions outside Bears Ears’ original President Barack Obama estab- millions of acres should be only the ment. For many Indigenous leaders, boundaries. And for many of the lished Bears Ears National beginning of Biden’s commitment it became a blueprint for how to Indigenous people who call Utah Monument — and former President to protect more public lands — and involve tribes in the stewardship home, racism — both overt and Donald Trump nearly destroyed it that tribal nations should be lead- of lands that were originally stolen systemic — remains a daily trauma, — these geographically stunning ing the charge. It’s more than just from them but are also important whether it appears in a racial slur southern Utah canyons were the the threat of degradation, they say; to the country as a whole. hurled at a Little League game or setting of countless battles over Indigenous voices are long overdue But many locals, most notably when the public is allowed to tram- who belongs to this land and whose in public-land management. those who descend from Mormon ple the ruins of ancient dwellings. history is worth saving. While Biden’s nomination of settlers with a long distrust of By the time Trump reduced In the first weeks, if not days, U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as secre- government intrusion, saw the the monuments in 2017, the battle of his administration, President tary of the Interior has given expansion of federal protections over protected lands had long Joe Biden is expected to restore Indian Country reasons for hope, over millions of acres of Utah’s since spilled over into local Utah the boundaries of two national tribal leaders and advocates say iconic landscape as government politics. In 2014, San Juan County monuments in Utah, Bears Ears she should be only one of many overreach. Painted on business Commissioner Phil Lyman led and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Indigenous people working with windows, stapled to cattle fences, a group of ATV riders through a

10 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS canyon where off-road vehicles are between the federal government to communicate with the tribal archaeological sites before they prohibited due to the presence of and tribes on shaky ground. nations. Tenakhongva wrote deteriorate any further. Many are numerous important archaeologi- “I think we have to remember, him a letter offering to explain also working to repair trails to keep cal sites. Lyman, now a Utah state just like these Native Americans the importance of Bears Ears the public from trampling fragile representative, was convicted and have traditions and history associ- and its cultural sites, and the two ruins. eventually spent 10 days in jail and ated to the land — and sure, many met in Washington, D.C., where “When Trump reduced the ordered to pay $96,000 in restitu- of them predate the others — but Tenakhongva invited Curtis to monument and basically cut out tion. He was pardoned by President many of these other people have “come out to Hopi and see what a lot of culturally significant areas, Trump in December. these life commitments to this land Hopi is all about.” that created a lot of risk,” said Hopi When Willie Grayeyes, a and a way of life. And when there’s a Curtis was invited to observe archaeologist Lyle Balenquah. “So Navajo community organizer and presidential declaration, it tends to one of the most sacred summer- they weren’t viewed as important. prominent advocate for Bears discount those, whether it’s Native time ceremonies of the Hopi Tribe. They were cutting out part of the Ears, ran for the San Juan County Americans or pioneers.” “It really took him to a different narrative.” Commission in 2018, his attempt For the members of the Bears state of respect,” Tenakhongva said. “It’s been difficult working in to make the commission majority Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, that “From there, (Curtis) said, ‘I am so this administration; we’ve been Navajo for the first time in history history is exactly what is at stake, grateful that you allowed me to be forced by the federal government was met by political opposition and it reaches back much further part of this. I know I’m not a Hopi. to approach (Bears Ears) piece- tinged with racism. than contact with settlers. Bears I know I’m an Anglo. I know I prac- meal-like,” said Carleton Bowekaty, U.S. Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, Ears continues to be an important ticed different religions, but this is the lieutenant governor of the acknowledged that racism still place of worship for his people and something that I will deeply take Pueblo of Zuni. He called the monu- exists, but said he worries that has been since time immemorial, and sincerely respect and never ment reductions a slap in the face to restoring the boundaries of Bears said Clark Tenakhongva, vice chair- forget.” tribes. “We fought hard for it.” Ears would only exacerbate it. “In man of the Hopi Tribe and one of They have even hiked together The Biden transition team a time when we’re trying to heal, in the coalition leaders. into Bears Ears to see some of the has been in conversation with the a time when we’re trying to bring “To other people that view it important cultural sites still intact. Zuni’s legal team since December, people together, when we’re trying as just a bunch of rocks and rock Tenakhongva explained their Bowekaty said, in stark contrast to to find things that unite us, this art and small dwellings that are importance to the Hopi people the relationship between the tribe stirs up some really deep resent- placed there — they don’t know the and why they are in need of protec- and the federal government under ment,” he said in a December in-depth reasons of why the struc- tion. “We both are family men, and the Trump administration, which interview. “Particularly when the tures were built,” Tenakhongva those are things that we related routinely failed to work with tribal federal government forces some- said. He often uses the concept of to — meaning our family first, our nations as respected sovereign thing on somebody — that doesn’t the kiva — a circular, underground people, the protection of the land governments. Bowekaty remains go well no matter where you live, Puebloan meeting room — as a and the importance of culture hopeful that Biden will put the right, no matter what you are.” metaphor to explain the gravity of and religion and practicing of reli- same energy into rebuilding the Curtis, whose district covers these cultural sites. “I try to focus gion,” he said. tribal coalitions that were formed Bears Ears, has always opposed the on the relationship. Like a church When President Trump reduced by President Obama. “Now, under designation of the national monu- and the kiva: What is the resem- the monument’s boundaries in 2017, this administration, we can address ment. His position has put him blance? It’s a place of worship. It’s many of these cultural sites, includ- the bigger picture and make sure sharply at odds with tribal leaders a place of prayer, and it’s a place ing the kivas, were left unprotected, that there’s no further desecra- before, but he said that recently he where community gathers. This vulnerable to looting and desecration. There’s no further looting. has made efforts to conference with is a place where a lot of decisions tion. While areas outside the current There’s no further negative effects them, including those involved of culture, hope and recognition of reduced boundaries of both Bears from people visiting without being in the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal life (are made).” Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante educated.” Coalition. Curtis said he believes After tribes forcefully are still protected by tribal and state For many, like Clark that allowing presidents to change rebuffed Curtis’ efforts to redraw laws, their removal from national Tenakhongva, even if Biden monument boundaries at the and manage Bears Ears in 2018, monument status opened them back restores both national monuments stroke of a pen leaves relationships Curtis expressed his willingness up to mining claims and oil and gas in Utah, that’s just the beginning leasing. of the conversation. “Then what Because archaeologists only happens after that?” Tenakhongva had access for a couple of years to said. Like other tribal leaders, he the more than 1 million acres that wants some reassurance that land Trump removed from Bears Ears, protections can no longer be so many of the important cultural easily diminished. “I would like to “This is a place where a lot of and historical sites have yet to be have a permanent, formal legisla- adequately documented. Now, tion that — no matter what other decisions of culture, hope, and archaeologists are using decades- president comes in 20 years from old records, some handwritten and now, 40 years from now — wouldn’t recognition of life (are made).” others mere sketches, in the race undo what work we have sacrificed to re-map and ideally stabilize our lives basically for.”

FEBRUARY 2021 11 REPORTAGE stewardship to tribal nations, with an Indigenous woman — Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) — poised to oversee public-lands management as Interior secretary for the first time in history. ‘A reconciliation’ “It’s a reconciliation,” said Chairwoman Shelly Fyant. “We are such a place-based people. After decades of battling misinformation, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai To have this land back, to be in control of it, is a Tribes finally regain the lands of the National Bison Range. fresh, new hope.”

BY ANNA V. SMITH THE NATIONAL BISON RANGE started as a small herd of free-roaming bison on the Flathead Indian Reservation managed by tribal members in the 1870s, while the bison around them were hunted to near-extinction. During the allotment era, when tribal lands the U.S. deemed “surplus” were sold, the federal government divvied up the reservation in 1904, giving some 404,047 acres to settlers, 60,843 to the state of Montana, and 1,757 acres to the U.S. “for other purposes.” Settlers flooded in, and today tribal members are a minority on their own reservation. The U.S. retained tribal lands for the range, carved out of prime habitat in the middle of the reservation. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt put the range under federal management without consultation with the tribe. Tribal members were not even allowed to work there. In 1971, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes took the U.S. to court for taking its lands in the early 1900s. They won, but though the taking was declared illegal, the lands weren’t returned. Tribal efforts to co-manage the National Bison Range with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife began in the early 1990s, but they were met Bison graze in a field at the National Bison Range in September of last year. There are between 350 and 500 bison on the range, which spans nearly 19,000 acres in western Montana. Pete Caster with opposition, despite the tribe’s established conservation record. (In 1982, for example, the tribe became the first tribe to designate a WHEN SHANE MORIGEAU was growing COVID-19 relief and government spending bills, wilderness area when it created the 92,000-acre up on the Flathead Indian Reservation, he and, unexpectedly, it passed. After a century Mission Mountain Tribal Wilderness.) The tribes knew that the land inside the fenced National of work, it felt sudden, said Morigeau, a tribal and the wildlife agency agreed to co-manage Bison Range was different from the tribal lands member and attorney for the Confederated the range in 2004, but the arrangement crum- elsewhere on the reservation, at the base of Salish and Kootenai Tribes and a Montana bled within two years after a small number of Montana’s Mission Mountains or the shores state legislator. “It happened so fast, it just really vocal federal employees and locals allied with an of Flathead Lake. He remembers being a kid hasn’t sunk in.” anti-Indigenous group, alleging mistreatment in his dad’s truck, driving past while his father Finally, after 113 years, the 18,800 acres of by the tribe. It was a theme that would continue explained that the lands inside the fence weren’t grassland, woodland and wildlife that comprise for nearly two decades. tribal lands anymore. As tribal elders tell it, it the National Bison Range, along with its resident was common knowledge that the fence was as bison herd, will be returned to the Confederated ANTI-INDIGENOUS RACISM wasn’t new to much to keep them out as it was to keep bison Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Today, the transfer the Flathead Indian Reservation. As human rights in. “It happened long ago,” Morigeau said, but has broad support from the community, conser- advocates have noted, anti-Indigenous groups “it still resonates across generations. vation groups and politicians alike. But the long have sprung up here since the 1970s, precisely In December, a bipartisan bill that would journey included three rounds of failed agree- because of the large population of non-Native transfer the lands and management of the ments between the U.S. and the tribe, numerous settlers unwilling to abide by tribal laws. Groups National Bison Range to the Confederated Salish lawsuits, a federal investigation, and a massive like All Citizens Equal and Citizens for Equal and Kootenai Tribes looked as if it might die in public education campaign to quash racist Rights Alliance regurgitate racist stereotypes Congress with the end of the session. Instead, rumors and stereotypes. It comes at a time of while seeking to reduce tribes’ political power and it was attached to a must-pass package of a broader conversation on the return of land refusing to recognize their sovereignty.

12 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Scores of people — some associated with those groups — wrote to Fish and Wildlife in opposition, pushing cruel stereotypes of Indigenous people as “lazy” and on “federal welfare.” Delbert Palmer, a leader of multiple anti-Indigenous groups, wrote to the Department of Interior in 2006 that “tribes are not sovereign nations.” The national nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which supports current and former public employees, also opposed the tribe’s management on behalf of Fish and Wildlife employees concerned about working for the tribes. Some, including Delbert Palmer’s son, Skip Palmer, then a board member of All Citizens Equal, had direct ties to anti-Indigenous groups. As an organization ordinarily devoted to government whistleblowers and environmental ethics, PEER gave anti-Indigenous sentiments a new sheen of respectability, as well as a pro bono platform. In dozens of press releases over more than a decade, PEER accused the tribes of harming the bison, harassing non-Native federal employees and “privatizing” public land, framing the tribes’ anti-Indigenous sentiments or use language that CHAIRWOMAN FYANT REMEMBERS riding plans as a “takeover.” On top of multiple lawsuits, divides communities.” on horseback on the range as a teenager, glee- PEER filed a formal complaint with the Office Opposition from non-Natives is common fully racing ahead when she wasn’t supposed of Inspector General, which turned up virtually when it comes to returning land to tribal manage- to, and, later on, enjoying baseball and picnics nothing. In the early 2000s, the Montana Human ment, said Krystal Two Bulls, Northern Cheyenne when she worked at Two Eagle River School. Rights Network contacted PEER to point out how and Oglala Lakota, director of NDN Collective’s Every tribal member has a unique relation- its harmful rhetoric echoed anti-Indigenous views. LandBack campaign. Two Bulls, who is from Lame ship with the National Bison Range. And yet, In response to questions from High Country Deer, Montana, sees the return of the National the Salish word for it is Nɫoʔx̣͏ʷenč, meaning News Tim Whitehouse, PEER’s executive direc- Bison Range as emblematic of the long endeavor “the fenced-in place.” The physical barrier tor since 2019, said in a statement that PEER to shift the stewardship of public lands — many grew into a powerful metaphor about how didn’t oppose the recent legislation; rather, it of which were taken illegally — back to tribes. tribal members could relate to the lands taken opposed previous negotiations because they Similar conversations are happening over Bears from them, Fyant said. But now, the tribes “lacked transparency.” “Under my watch, PEER Ears National Monument in Utah and Gwich’in can put their energy into Indigenizing the will never represent individuals or groups asso- lands in the Arctic. It’s a generational battle, but, range, welcoming the public to learn about ciated with anti-Indigenous views. Systemic Two Bulls said, “More than any other campaign tribal stories and priorities. Speaking of the racism against Indigenous peoples is real and that I’ve worked on or any other organizing space return of the lands and Haaland’s potential as its impacts have been devastating. PEER should that I’ve been in, Land Back is one of the ones that Interior secretary, Fyant summed it up simply: never and will never use language that echoes holds the most hope.” “It’s about damn time.”

THE LATEST Backstory Followup Chi’chil Bildagoteel, or Oak Flat, a culturally After completing its project analysis in December significant site for the San Carlos Apache Tribe — a year early — the U.S. Forest Service planned and other Indigenous peoples, was protected to begin the swap in January. The agency denied from copper mining in 1955 by President Dwight rushing the process, although the Guardian D. Eisenhower. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., reported that the Trump administration pres- added a rider to a 2014 military spending bill sured it to. If built, Resolution’s underground allowing mining company Resolution Copper copper mine — one of the nation’s largest and Mining to trade scattered private lands for it, using a deepest — would eventually collapse into a crater sped-up environmental assessment process some 2 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, destroy- (“How a huge Arizona mining deal was passed ing important religious and ceremonial sites. sacred — and could be revoked,” 2/2/16). Now, facing legal action by the nonprofit Apache Stronghold for violating Indigenous treaty rights, the Forest Service has agreed to temporarily lands pause the transfer. —Maya L. Kapoor

FEBRUARY 2021 13 REPORTAGE with nearly 70% in 2020. But the county defies easy categorization. Locals describe Westcliffe, the county seat, as polit- ically “purple.” The town is a mecca of sorts, a gateway to thousands of acres of protected wilderness, and its pristine dark skies attract photographers and stargazers Queers, alpacas and guns from around the world. (It is a certified International Dark Sky An LGBTQ+ community forges its path in a Community, one of only a handful conservative Colorado town. worldwide.) A number of counter- cultural communities have found a BY ERIC SIEGEL | PHOTOS BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY / HCN foothold there over the years, from Mission: Wolf, an off-the-grid wolf sanctuary founded in the 1980s, to the Mountain Publishing Company, A YEAR AGO, transgender rancher anti-fascist alpaca ranchers. While the conservative media organiza- Justine pauses for a portrait while Penny Logue found the dome. Fed they already knew the financial, tion that publishes the weekly caring for the sheep. “I started the up with a hostile landlord in the city physical and emotional challenges Sangre de Cristo Sentinel (“The watering because it was needed, but then I realized I was doing it because it and fearful for their safety amid of operating a successful ranch, Voice of Conservative Colorado!”). got me out of bed,” she said. record-high deaths in the transgen- they had no idea that the Wet The Sentinel’s articles and columns der community nationwide, Logue Mountain Valley had become a — one called “Patriot Alert!” — edito- and her business partner, Bonnie cauldron of right-wing conserva- rialize on gun culture, patriotism Nelson, sought refuge in the rural, tism — home to militias, vigilantes, and the history of “the Old West.” groups, which now symbolizes open rangelands. Three Percenters — anathema When I visited the ranch anti-fascism and intersectional The geodesic dome perched to the ranch’s gender-inclusive, around Thanksgiving, the late-af- Pride. Pride flags with colorful on sprawling acreage in the remote anti-racist, ecological politics. ternoon light was reverberant, stripes — pink, rose, yellow, green, Wet Mountain Valley on the east- But rather than retreat, the volleying off the Wet Mountains pewter, black, white — bedeck ern flank of the Sangre de Cristo unique LGBTQ+ community, and Sangre de Cristos, casting a the wall, celebrating asexuality, Mountain Range, near the rural around a dozen strong, asserted its luminous glow across the land- agender identity, lesbianism and ranching hamlet of Westcliffe, right to exist. They armed up and scape. J, a Texan who moved to the nonbinary gender identities. Colorado. They were intrigued. began speaking out, quickly devel- ranch in June — after losing her Since Logue founded the ranch “Domes are funky and cool and a bit oping a reputation that galvanized job and housing in the pandemic in 2018, its frontier libertarian ethos against the status quo — and they other local rural progressives. In — waved to me from a long stair- has attracted social justice activ- help the planet,” Logue told me. So the process, they’ve shown how well outside the dome’s entrance. ists and gun-rights advocates, all they bought it. queer communities can flourish. Dressed in all-black denim, she seeking sanctuary. “We’re a haven. “They are weird but useful,” she “We belong here,” Logue told me was masked and distanced in a We offer work, we offer shelter, we said, “which is the essence of queer.” this past November. “Queers are black cowboy hat and stylish black offer peace,” says Logue, gesturing If the dome caught their atten- reclaiming country spaces.” boots, armed with her favorite fire- toward the expansive open space tion, the dramatic Wet Mountain arm, a Ruger-57. Nine enthusiastic surrounding us. “There are a lot of Valley convinced them to stay. CUSTER COUNTY, COLORADO, dogs — five Great Pyrenees and people who visit for upwards of a “We fell in love,” said Logue. “You where the newly formed Tenacious Australian shepherd puppies, all week and just enjoy their time away emerge out of the mountains Unicorn Ranch is located, is named named after Star Trek characters from society,” Nelson added. into the valley and the Sangre de after George Armstrong Custer. It (Worf, Seven of Nine, Geordi, Lore “And cry,” Logue said. “When Cristo range just breaks in front of was founded in March 1877 — nine and Data) — howled, tails wagging that ranch gate shuts behind you, you.” She and Nelson were unex- months after Custer’s defeat at The like windshield wipers. Nearly a the cis world stays out there.” pectedly taken with Westcliffe Battle of Little Bighorn — and its hundred hissing alpaca trundled On that November afternoon too — its quaint storefronts and overwhelmingly white, rural and across the pasture. at the barn, Justine — a 21-year-old theater, the wide sidewalks, signs conservative population hovers at The ranch exists at a phil- who moved to the ranch in July — for “Shakespeare in the Park.” around 5,000. While Colorado as osophical intersection that is filled water basins for the alpaca and By March, with the pandemic a whole has shifted left in recent immediately evident inside the sheep and fed the ducks and chick- raging and a divisive presidential years, Custer County has been dome, where a wall displays prized ens. “I started the watering because election roiling, they had relo- tacking right: In every presidential firearms — Bonnie’s sniper, a it was needed, but then I realized I cated to the valley from northern election since 2008, when John Springfield AR-15, two 12-gauge was doing it because it got me out of Colorado and created the Tenacious McCain carried the county by 63%, shotguns and a 22-rifle — and flags bed,” she said. “As long as the alpaca Unicorn Ranch, a community the percentage of Republican votes for The Iron Front, the anti-Nazi are healthy and fed, we can keep of gun-loving, transgender, has steadily increased. Trump won symbol used by 1930s paramilitary growing and help more people.”

14 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Logue and her cohort seek to through downtown Westcliffe, I guess that makes us ‘normal’ or deliberately chose alpaca because challenge the patriotic myths — protesting the Custer County Board whatever, but that’s the closest their poop is particularly good about Manifest Destiny, liberty and of Health’s decision to cancel the we’ll get to assimilation.” for establishing deep soil,” Logue freedom — that their Wet Mountain annual Independence Day Parade. This underscores a larger said. “We do natural farming and Valley neighbors double-down on The ranchers had planned to avoid point: Exceeding established cate- ranching, so we don’t rob the land in The Sentinel. “The American the protest downtown but got gories, and reinventing something of its inherent goodness. We make frontier or ‘the American West’ caught in the crowds during morn- better in their wake, is a hallmark it better.” The Tenacious Unicorns wasn’t conquered with rugged ing errands. “We saw them flying of “camp culture” — what critic and their brand of camp culture individualism,” she said. “It was the Three Percenter flags front and Susan Sontag famously described are leading the way, reinventing conquered by communities stick- center, and everybody was armed. It in her 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” rural America, which is to say, ing together. … Nobody did that by was a fascist parade,” Logue told me. as the “love of the exaggerated, the making it more than just a cis-white themselves.” Their social mission “So, we came back and started antifa ‘off’ ... the spirit of extravagance.” stronghold. — akin to that of mutual-aid accounts on Instagram. We called The perceived surplus or frivol- “You know,” Logue said, networks and similar to anti-fas- them out on being Nazis by tweet- ity is the point. Hence the large “there’s plenty of space in those cist groups like Redneck Revolt as ing about them, then on Facebook.” number of alpaca (nearly 200, as of communities for queer voices.” well as leftist pro-gun groups like What happened next surprised January): It’s a sensibility, a vision the John Brown Gun Club or the them. “There was a real upsurge — a distinctly ecological one. “We WEB EXTRA: More photos at hcn.org Socialist Rifle Association — stems from the leftist community in the from their political commitments. Valley,” said Logue. The outcry “It isn’t through harsh words and created an unexpected open- violence that you defeat fascism,” ing, as they unknowingly tapped Logue told me. “It’s through build- into long-simmering sentiments. ing community, but only if you Meanwhile, they found another can stay alive long enough to do it. niche: Many residents began That means you have to be armed — employing them in local handiwork because fascists are armed, always.” and physical labor. The ranchers This is something they’ve also provide recycling services at learned firsthand. “There are mili- the county landfill. That has expo- tias in the Wet Mountain Valley,” nentially increased their visibility: Logue said. “They’ve showed up “It’s really hard for people to paint armed and threatening.” That you as ‘weird’ or whatever, if you’re spurred the ranchers to arm just helping people,” Logue said. up. “Moving here demanded gun If the political headwinds they ownership,” she continued. The face seem daunting, they’ve also ranchers watched from their front made them adapt. “We’re queer. We porch with a high-powered scope get second-guessed all the time,” and sniper rifle — the Springfield Logue said. “We’re always having AR-15 on the living room wall — to innovate and think ahead.” staking out visitors loitering at the When they couldn’t get certain end of their driveway. The visits Department of Agriculture live- ceased. It’s rumored locally that stock loans, for example — alpacas militias unofficially “patrol” their are technically classified as pets — surroundings to establish domi- they acquired a few sheep. “There’s nance. “In order to be treated as a something inherently queer about human, you have to show you can how many alpaca we have. People defend yourself more than they can don’t know what to do with us,” said hurt you,” Logue said. “Then you Kathryn, one of Logue’s partners, can reach equality.” who goes by her first name only. But achieving that has been “Sure, we’ll bring out some sheep, elusive. This past summer, with COVID-19 cases rising, residents disagreed about local officials’ handling of the pandemic. The Bonnie Nelson sits where she once watched unwelcome visitors loitering town’s political conflicts erupted at the ranch’s gate with her Springfield on July Fourth, when armed AR-15 in hand (top right). demonstrators — led by the Custer Citizens for Liberty, a right-wing Penny Logue reclines on a pile of hay as she coaxes the friendliest members patriot group that The Sentinel of the ranch’s alpaca herd closer to her frequently endorsed — paraded (right).

FEBRUARY 2021 15 50TH ANNIVERSARY

HCN in the 2000s

A CHANGING OF THE GUARD In 2002, after nearly two decades at the helm, Publisher and Editor Ed and Betsy Marston decided to step down. Longtime staffer Paul Larmer became publisher, and Greg Hanscom took over as editor. Together with Art Director Cindy Wehling, they turned the black-and-white tabloid into a full-color magazine that celebrated the beauty and exposed the ugliness of the West. This included deep reporting on the region’s extractive industries. The 2000s brought an unprecedented oil and gas boom, spurred by $100/barrel oil prices and new hydro-fracking technology that enabled producers to tap new reservoirs of hydrocarbons. George W. Bush’s industry-friendly appointees opened the doors to new development on public lands. Labor camps sprang up overnight in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, turning boomtowns like Gillette, Wyoming, into hotbeds for quick Despite sophisticated computers on some rigs, 50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENT it is ultimately up to the drill operator to take the money, drugs and sometimes violence. Combing JOURNALISM FOR THE WEST pulse of the rig and to watch the backs of his fellow through state and federal records, Senior Editor roughnecks. JT Thomas Thanks to readers and donors across the country, Ray Ring found that between 2000 and 2006, we’re more than halfway to our ambitious goal of thousands of oil and gas workers were seriously $10 million dollars to grow our reach and impact, injured on the job, and 89 died, victims of danger- media coverage and received the 2006 Sullivan and to ensure that HCN flourishes in the future. ous work conditions and an underregulated indus- Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. We need your support to reach this summit! To try. HCN published the names of all of them. The magazine also began to expand its cover- learn more and contribute: hcn.org/50-years age of social issues, exploring immigration and A WARMER, AND WIDER, WEST the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands and writing about Even as energy boomed, evidence mounted that drug addiction and gang violence in rural and fossil-fuel-driven climate change was already urban communities. In 2006, HCN published impacting the West, bringing a diminishing its first piece of fiction, “The Tamarisk Hunter,” snowpack, increased wildfires, forest die-offs set in the desert Southwest in 2030. The author, and drought. HCN Contributing Editor Michelle Paolo Bacigalupi, who then served as HCN’s digi- Nijhuis wrote the groundbreaking climate series, tal editor, has gone on to become an internation- “Hot Times,” years in advance of mainstream ally acclaimed science fiction writer. Krystal Quiles / HCN

16 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS HCN COMMUNITY

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stories in national view. Scandals, stress and a ray gun Meanwhile, we were trying to transform the publication, bring- I came to HCN during a time of involved no fewer than five editors ing more narrative into our fea- barely controlled chaos. We were marking up the pages with sticky tures, and broadening our scope on a two-week publication sched- notes. Sometimes we literally to include more environmental ule and were still as much “news- ripped a story off the flats hours justice, social and cultural issues. paper” as “magazine,” trying to before it was to go to the printer Just a few months after I arrived, stay on top of all of the current because it just wasn’t ready. The we ran a cover story by Angela news, particularly as it related to resulting stress took years off our Garcia on the heroin epidemic in public lands. And boy, was there lives, but it also kept the office Chimayo, New Mexico, and short- a lot of news: The George W. Bush/ lively, since we used humor and ly thereafter I spearheaded an en- Dick Cheney administration was laughter (and toy ray-guns) to tire issue devoted to immigration. on a public-land-pillaging ram- blow off steam. A few years later, Ray Ring wrote page, while its associates and It was a time of transition for a heartbreaking essay on suicide. underlings were constantly en- our region. Long dismissed as “fly- Readers almost always loved the tangled in scandals. (Remember over country,” the Interior West be- pieces, even as they criticized us when Jack Abramoff’s lobbying came the heart of national politics for running them because they fraud and the Minerals Manage- in 2008 when Denver landed the didn’t adhere to our “mission.” ment Service’s sex-and-drug par- Democratic National Convention. We took some crazy risks with ties with oil executives were still The same issues we’d covered for stories during those years. But considered scandalous? Those years in obscurity were suddenly all HCN has always been willing were the days). over the front page of The New York to take risks when needed as it Often that meant assigning Times. The housing crash, which evolves with the West. And I hope Thompson in the studio helping record stories on Friday that would go to was centered in Western cities like — and believe — it always will. HCN Staff Editor Cally Carswell’s podcast. Courtesy of Jonathan print two weeks later, but only af- Phoenix and Las Vegas, and the —Jonathan Thompson, Thompson ter a “layered” editing process that natural gas boom and bust kept our editor-in-chief, 2007-2010

18 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Megan & Richard Prelinger | San Francisco, CA Anne & Kirk Halford | Boise, ID Joan Pryor | Lake Stevens, WA Howard Hallman Jr. | Frisco, CO HCN COMMUNITY Amy Risch & Nancy Andrews | Ouray, CO Dan Hawkes | Klamath Falls, OR Milly Roeder | Lakewood, CO Carla Hendrickson | Pueblo, CO Victoria Rosenfield | Culver City, CA JoAnn Hinrichs | Aurora, CO Laurie Sand | Fort Collins, CO Justin Hovey | Wheat Ridge, CO Mary & Clee Sealing | Fruita, CO Mike & Jennifer Hrachovec | Seattle, WA David & Bette Seeland | Lakewood, CO John J. Hunt | Madison, AL Gretchen A. Semerad | Salt Lake City, UT Joan Hunt | Paonia, CO Kathleen Sheehan Dugan | Bigfork, MT Dianna Klineburger | Lynnwood, WA Natalie Shrewsbury | Fort Collins, CO Ron & Judy Knoshaug | Arvada, CO New faces Lin Skavdahl & Steffany Raynes | Bellingham, WA Alfred J. Kreinberg | Grand Junction, CO Dan Slack | Centennial, CO Carl Krumhardt | Mauston, WI HIGH COUNTRY NEWS WELCOMED Robert & Anne Sneed | Denver, CO Robert J. LaBaugh | Denver, CO Audrey Spector | Berkeley, CA April Leach | Bozeman, MT new interns in January: Wufei Yu Jim Struve & Jeff Bell | Bellingham, WA John A. Lee | Langley, WA from Albuquerque, New Mexico, David A. Sutherland | Northglenn, CO Nancy & Karl Lillquist | Ellensburg, WA and Surya Milner from Bozeman, Ellen Taylor | Santa Fe, NM Sherry Litasi | Hillsboro, NM Lane Taylor | Flagstaff, AZ Sarah Lovell | Columbia, MO Montana. Preston Thompson | Seattle, WA Alex Mattes-Ritz | Lincoln, MA As a young boy from Beijing, Kathy & Greg Thompson | Paonia, CO Billie & Richard Mauntel | Tucson, AZ Clifford & Liana Wallman | Midway, UT David McCord | Denver, CO Yu wanted to write about sports: Elizabeth Lee Frenkel Living Trust | Portland, OR Padraic McCracken & Nisan Burbridge | Helena, MT “I started to not just contend with David Werner | Palmer, AK Todd McGuire | Port Townsend, WA Judith A. 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Wufei Yu at Great In honor of the wonderful Tracy & Michael Cynthia Pritekel | Loveland, CO journalism school in 2018, Yu con- Ehlers | Boulder , CO George Rampp | Port Angeles, WA Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado In honor of Jerry Ellarman Anton Rang | Houlton, WI tinued writing about sports, with (above). In honor of Esme Louise Chad Roberts | Davis, CA a bent toward outdoor adventure. In honor of Wren Fielka, Spread the Love Greg Ryman | La Verne, CA Commission | Jackson, WY Roberts A.L. Sargent Jr. | Cedaredge, CO He soon ditched the city for the In honor of Pearl Fox Angie Schmidt | Cheyenne, WY deserts of New Mexico, working as own identity as a biracial South In honor of Jan Gabin Keith & Janet Sewell | Rio Rico, AZ a fellow for Outside Magazine. Now, Asian American woman. Milner In honor James Hall | Topeka, KS Bruce D. 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Yori | Centennial, CO Conservation Corps in the Absaro- which honors a longtime Califor- In memory of Thomas S. Hayden In memory of Lillian Hayes WELCOME TO THE SUSTAINERS’ CLUB ka-Beartooth Wilderness and the nia reader and conservationist. In memory of David & L. Hotaling Anonymous (5) Custer Gallatin National Forest. Jessica, a native of Oregon and In memory of Rick Kelly In memory of Jo Anne Garrett In memory of Charlie Mayer | Wynnewood, PA In memory of Emily Jackson At Bowdoin College in Maine, member of the Confederated In memory of Robert Murphy | Tigard, OR Dawn Burkhardt | Pasadena, CA she reported for her college news- Tribes of the Siletz Indians, just In memory of Emerson S. 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Randolph & Kath August | Las Vegas, NV Patti Kaech | Paonia, CO Diane Burton | Fort Collins, CO Christine Langhoff | Dorchester, MA Melvin & Doris Carpenter | Reno, NV Bert Lindler | Missoula, MT Bruce & Judy Connery | Victor, ID Roger Millar | Olympia, WA HCN SAYS GOODBYE TO TWO REMARKABLE GENTLEWOMEN, Mary Ellen Cox | Denver, CO MaryCarol Nelson | Hailey, ID Sharon Crespi | San Francisco, CA Ralph Pezoldt | Claremont, CA readers and lifelong movers and shakers. Kate Missett of Cheyenne, Barry Doyle | Ridgway, CO Dustin Saxton | Riverside, CA Wyoming, 1949-2020, who served on HCN’s board back in the early Mike & LouAnn Drews | Carson City, NV Max Spivak | Los Angeles, CA Jessie J. Duffy | Studio City, CA Robert Vestal | Boise, ID Wyoming days, was a dog-loving journalist and gifted wordsmith. And Ingrid & Gerhard Fischer | Boulder, CO Erich & Edie Warkentine | Bishop, CA Mariel Margery Johnson of Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1948-2020, was a Stanley Fitzpatrick | Seattle, WA Daniel Wing | Truckee, CA weaver, gardener, booklover and traveler, who left HCN a generous gift. Shelby Flint | St. Paul, MN Kimberlee Zonge | Carson City, NV Risa Galant | Seattle, WA Mariel and Kate, you are dearly loved, and you will be missed.

DECEMBERFEBRUARY 20202021 19 The Big A half-century ago, the Big Buildup transformed the West; now, it’s all coming to an end. Breakdown BY JONATHAN THOMPSON

FOR NEARLY FIVE DECADES, the Navajo the West’s economic and energy landscape. author Charles Wilkinson would later dub “The Generating Station’s smokestacks towered over In the late 1950s, several utilities across Big Buildup.” the sandstone and scrub of the Navajo Nation the Southwest teamed up to create a cabal Four of the six proposed plants — Four in northern Arizona, churning out green- called WEST, or Western Energy Supply and Corners, Mojave, San Juan and Navajo house gases and other pollutants and serving Transmission Associates, to construct six — sprouted on or near the Navajo Nation in the as symbols of coal’s unquestioned dominance massive coal-fired power plants and their 1960s and early ’70s. Huntington was built in of the nation’s energy mix. But the plant shut accompanying mines across the Colorado central Utah, but the sixth plant never made it down in December 2019, and the towers were Plateau. The plants would then ship power past the drawing board. demolished a year later. Now they symbolize hundreds of miles across high-voltage lines to The Buildup’s real beneficiaries lay west something else entirely: The Big Breakdown of the region’s burgeoning cities. It was the first and south of the Colorado Plateau, in the cities, coal power and the ongoing transformation of and most ambitious phase of what scholar and where an abundance of cheap power lit the neon

20 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS of Las Vegas and ran air conditioners in LA. The THE BIG BREAKDOWN, Navajo Generating Station powered the pumps Thousands of tons of coal BY THE NUMBERS that pushed Colorado River water into central consumed for electricity Arizona, sending Phoenix’s suburbs sprawling into the desert and enriching the Southwest’s growth machine — all those real estate developers, mass-production homebuilders, the 2.27 automotive industry, the corporate shareholders, billion the ratepayers and the executives. For a half-century, the coal plants churned, pumping electricity onto the grid, cash into 1.7 state and tribal coffers, and pollution into the billion water, land and air, unruffled by recessions or environmental protests and lawsuits, impervi- ous to the booms and busts that plagued oil, gas and hardrock mining. Just as the coal leviathan maintained a steady stream of “baseload” power to the grid, so too did it provide an economic 2009 2019 foundation for coal-dependent communities, Tons of carbon together with a baseload level of smog. dioxide emitted Now that foundation is crumbling. by U.S. power plants Coal as a power-generating fuel reached its apex in 2007. Soon thereafter, the price of natural gas came crashing down and that, along with renewable-energy tax credits and the decreasing price of solar and wind energy, wiped away coal’s 2019 cost advantage. States mandated that at least The first year since 1885

some of the electricity they consumed had to Year that total U.S. annual energy come from clean sources, California ordered the consumption from renew- state’s utilities to break their coal habit for good, able sources exceeded coal consumption. and the Obama administration implemented a variety of regulations that increased the cost of 157 million tons operating coal plants. Amount of coal mined from Today, the products of the Big Buildup are Western mines in the third coming down as surely as the Navajo Generating quarter of 2007. Station’s smokestacks. Mojave shut down in 2005; 79 million tons Reid-Gardner in southern Nevada went dark in Amount of coal mined from 2019, as did the Navajo Generating Station and Western mines in the third the Kayenta Mine that fed it. San Juan Generating quarter of 2020. Station in northwestern New Mexico will close 116 million tons next year, and the nearby Four Corners Power Amount of coal pulled from Plant is unlikely to run beyond 2031. Domestic Wyoming mines during the coal consumption is down 65% since its 2007 peak, third quarter of 2007. and some 45,000 coal miners have lost their jobs during the last decade. The Big Breakdown is 56 million tons Amount of coal mined in reverberating across the West despite President Wyoming during the third Donald Trump’s market-meddling and regula- quarter of 2020. tion-eviscerating efforts to save the coal industry. The transition won’t be easy: Coal-dependent 9.3 million tons economies are suffering mightily, from the Amount of coal mined in Arizona during the third quar- Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Nation to towns like ter of 2007. Farmington, New Mexico, and Gillette, Wyoming. Yet the Big Breakdown also opens up space for 0 hope and opportunity, for a rethinking and Millions of kWh of electricity Amount of coal mined in refashioning of energy systems and economies. generated/consumed Arizona during all of 2020. And already the air over the Southwest is a little bit cleaner than it’s been since the 1960s. Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Energy Information Administration, Navajo Generating Station-Kayenta Mine Complex Draft Environmental Impact Photo by Dan Winters Statement (2016), St. Louis Dispatch. Infographic design: Luna Anna Archey / HCN

FEBRUARY 2021 21 REPORTAGE

New wind projects power local budgets in Wyoming When the pandemic hit the fossil fuel industry, towns expected big deficits. Instead, some got major windfalls.

BY JANE C. HU

WHEN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC fact, over the summer, the city development west of the city. The High Plains and McFadden Ridge Wind Energy Project near Rock River, hit, Robin Lockman feared the brought in more tax revenue than Throughout Wyoming, counties Wyoming, in Carbon County. Tax worst for her town of Cheyenne, the year before. typically depend on industries like revenues from wind energy projects Wyoming. As the city’s treasurer, Between July and September, coal, oil and gas drilling, mining or could keep Wyoming counties in the she estimated that it might lose Cheyenne saw a 20.5% increase in tourism and recreation to bring black as oil, gas and coal prices fall. Nick Cote up to 25% of its budget as tax reve- tax revenue compared to 2019. In in the taxes necessary to pay for nues stalled and the prices of oil, September alone, the increase was education, community programs gas and coal tanked, eliminating a staggering 83%, or $1.4 million. “I and infrastructure. Overall money the city typically receives was in shock when I saw it,” said economic activity is down — state- Wind Project, are booming. Now, from the state as royalties from the Lockman. She feared the good news wide, sales and use taxes have residents and officials are asking extractive energy industry was a mistake, so she called the shrunk 6% over the last year — but whether wind energy can help the So the city did the hard work of Wyoming Department of Revenue revenues from mining, quarry- state survive the economic storm of laying off 18 employees and cutting to confirm the numbers. “The tax ing, and oil and gas extraction are the pandemic — and become a reli- funds for travel and training. And reported was legitimate, and was due down nearly twice that. Meanwhile, able revenue stream for the future then a surprising thing happened: to the Roundhouse Wind Project,” profits from wind energy devel- as fossil fuel income dries up. The huge deficit never arrived. In said Lockman, referring to an energy opments, like the Roundhouse Over the last decade, investors

22 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS have laid the groundwork for wind Lockman, Cheyenne’s treasurer, bought a car for $100, and then THE BIG BREAKDOWN farms across Wyoming, which ranks thinks the boom her city saw in you found out this $100 car needs among the nation’s top 10 states for the third quarter of 2020 might be a $2,000 motor.” wind capacity, according to the U.S. a one-time influx from a period of Some see it as a sign that the Percentage of total Department of Energy. The Power heavy construction. “Personally, I state is giving up on its sunset- electricity generated Company of Wyoming, a private feel it’s probably a temporary type ting oil, gas and mining industries. by fuel, 3rd quarter company run by the Anschutz of situation, but I’m hoping it will Throgmorton said many of his Corporation, is developing a facility be longer-term,” she said. students imagine following in on Carbon County’s 320,000-acre Residents have also raised their parents’ footsteps and work- Nat gas Overland Trail Ranch, just outside concerns that wind energy jobs ing at the Sinclair Oil Refinery. “But 28.2% Rawlins. Framed by I-80 to the north aren’t going to locals. Many wind that’s more fantasy than real now,” and Sage Creek Road to the west, projects have been completed he said. Still, many Wyomingites the property is one of Wyoming’s by teams that travel to the state hope that renewable energies like classic wide-open spaces: miles for a few weeks at a time, living wind will help sustain the state’s of rolling grassland dotted with in camps at the edge of town, energy economy in the long-term. 2010 scrubby sagebrush. On land long Throgmorton said. “Everyone was “Honestly, I hated (wind energy) used for cattle and sheep ranch- hoping locals would be involved when it first came along, but I real- ing, in a county named for rich coal in wind turbines, but turns out ized I didn’t know anything about deposits, construction crews have that’s all done by specialty teams it,” said Weickum. “People who Nuke built roads and turbine pads for the from outside,” he said. For exam- have made their living in oil, gas 18.3% Coal Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind ple, the permit applications for the and coal — they feel like if you like 43.5% Hydro Other 5.3% Energy Project, which will comprise Two Rivers and Lucky Star wind wind, you’re cheating on your wife, 2.97% Wind 1.7% nearly 1,000 wind turbines by 2026. projects explicitly mention “man you’re cheating on oil, gas and coal. Solar Sixty miles east, Rocky Mountain camps” and estimate that roughly But we need every piece of it.” 0.03% Power, a subsidiary of the state’s 80% of workers will be “non-local.” Even if the wind industry doesn’t largest utility, has begun erecting About half of the 100 people work- continue generating hefty tax reve- Nat gas 270-feet tall turbines at the Ekola ing on the Chokecherry and Sierra nues, its contributions could help 43.6%

Flats Wind Energy Project. Madre project between April and keep counties solvent. Companies Nuke The projects will create local jobs November were from Wyoming, pay sales tax on equipment 17.7% as workers operate and maintain the said Choquette. purchased for maintenance, like facilities. “Once the Chokecherry The wind industry faces other replacement turbine blades, prop- and Sierra Madre Wind Energy sources of resistance in Wyoming. erty taxes on the assessed value of Project is complete, we estimate Groups across wind-rich counties projects, and taxes on the energy 2020 114 permanent jobs will be created,” have opposed projects, saying generated. According to Connie said Kara Choquette, the commu- turbines disrupt dark-sky areas, Wilbert, director of the Sierra Club’s nications director for the Power impede views or decrease prop- Wyoming chapter, those proceeds

Company of Wyoming. The Two erty values. In addition, legislators can be many millions of dollars Hydro Rivers and Lucky Star wind proj- have proposed raising taxes on a year. “For these small towns in Coal 6.2% 21.7% ects, smaller developments near the wind generation and removing tax Wyoming, budgets aren’t that big, Other Wind 2.5% border between Carbon and Albany incentives. While those changes so if you had a steady, reliable $5 5.9% Solar counties, are expected to generate could generate more tax revenue, million a year, that’s a big deal.” 2.4% another 24 long-term operations they could also drive wind projects People in communities and maintenance jobs. elsewhere. According to a 2019 benefitting from the financial Right now, that new construction analysis by Wyoming’s Center for windfall of new projects are grate- is generating much-needed sales Energy Economics and Public ful for those extra dollars this year. taxes on materials. Between April Policy, Wyoming already taxes Throgmorton calls the wind indus- $144 million Amount pledged by Arizona Public and June, Carbon County’s taxable wind developments at roughly try “the goose that’s laying the Service to provide a just transition to sales increased by 108%. “Everyone twice the rate of neighboring golden egg,” and said he’s relieved communities where the company will else around here’s hair is on fire, but Colorado. to be able to focus on his campus’s shut down its coal-fired power plants. we’re sitting in a pretty good position, Though legislators have not development. And Lockman, the thanks to wind energy,” said Dave made any recent changes to Cheyenne treasurer, said that even 2.7 gigawatts Amount of coal-fired generating Throgmorton, director of the Carbon wind taxes, recurring proposals if it the big tax increases from this capacity projected to be retired in County Higher Education Center, scare off companies, said Terry year don’t continue, they have 2021. which is funded by the county and Weickum, a former Carbon County been a boon during the pandemic provides college-level and voca- Commission chairman and a newly months that will allow the city 31.6 million tons tional training classes. elected member of the Rawlins City some leeway in 2021. “Thank good- Total amount of coal exports from the United States, second quarter 2012. Council. “No one wants to do business for wind energy,” she said, BUT THAT INCREASED tax ness in an unstable environment,” “because if not for it, we’d be in a lot 15.3 million tons flow is not guaranteed to continue. said Weickum. “It’d be like if you different shape.” Coal exports, second quarter 2020.

FEBRUARY 2021 23 Kyle Davis - Mechanic and Machinist “I felt like what we were doing was a good thing. It was valuable and then all sudden it was like: Well, it’s not valuable anymore. Coal’s been good. It’s been good to me. I think it’s been good to the Northwest. I hate to kick it too hard under the curb. And (as for) solar panels, that’s not getting done here, not like it should be. Hopefully that’ll change. I’ve got friends who work up in that industry, and that was a stellar job opportunity, if things don’t pan out with moving to another plant. That’s not my first choice, but if they actually build panels in the United States, that’s another business to get into. This has been great for my family to be here (Boardman), but we’re probably going to have to move to stay with the company. And, at 59, it’s kind of a bummer age to have to be making that kind of change.”

24 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS As a coal plant closes, workers reflect “The people here made the plant. What we did is something that was needed.”

PHOTOS BY SAGE BROWN | TEXT BY CARL SEGERSTROM

TO REACH THE TOP of the coal-fired power plant outside Boardman, combines solar, wind and battery storage — is under construction. In 2019, Oregon, one must first ascend 19 floors in an elevator, then climb a couple renewable sources produced more energy than coal in the U.S. for the first of sets of stairs, all the while passing a labyrinth of heavy metal machines time in recent history. and metal catwalks. These various — and, to the untrained eye, mysteri- Every power source comes with costs and benefits to workers, nearby ous — machines work together to spin a turbine that converts heat into communities and the environment. Ten years ago, Portland General electricity. From the roof, the plant’s smokestack rises even higher above Electric, Boardman’s owner, in response to Clean Air Act lawsuits from a barren coal yard that was once filled with piles of coal from the Powder environmental groups, agreed that the cost of coal power was too high. River Basin of Wyoming. After four decades as one of Oregon’s top power Since then, the plant has been slowly winding down operations. Repairs producers — and the state’s number-one point-source of carbon dioxide were skipped, jobs were slowly phased out as less maintenance work was emissions — the Boardman plant closed in October 2020. But glimpses done, and the utility company began offering its employees career training of the present and future of energy production are visible next door and and assignments at other plants. on the horizon. Now, crews are taking the plant apart. The first task is to make the Within a couple hundred yards of the coal facility, a puff of exhaust giant machine, housed in a metal-sided building, “cold, dark and dry,” as rises from a natural gas power plant. Over the last decade, natural gas has the plant manager put it, so demolition crews can come in and level the supplanted coal as the top source of electricity generation in the United rest. Wires are being cut. Some parts may be cleaned and sent to other States. Now, wind turbines can be seen dotting fields of sagebrush or grain plants. In mid-December, High Country News visited Boardman to talk in every direction from the top of the coal plant. On a recent morning, with some of the people who ran the plant about the work they’ve done Brandon Hendricks, the plant’s operations manager, pointed to a low hill powering the region, the changes in the energy industry and the hole the in the distance, where the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility — which closing is leaving in their careers.

FEBRUARY 2021 25 Denice Strawn - Plant Operator “Pretty much all I’ve had is male-dominated jobs. I was in the Marine Corps. I grew up roofing houses. I worked out at Hanford (the now-defunct federal nuclear production site) and at the railroad. I’ve always worked with men. My son’s getting married next November, and his girlfriend is learning how to weld. I’ve been trying to encourage her to get into a welders’ union. She’s kind of afraid that, ‘Oh, I can’t do that kind of work.’ I said, ‘You’re welding, you’re doing the job as a hobby, but you can do it.’ Girls, women need to realize that there are jobs in the union that they can do and do well. They’ve just got to be willing to step out there. They’re good-paying jobs and they have good benefits, and I’d like to just encourage them to step outside of their comfort zone.”

The control system at the head of the main turbine (left). A piece of bottom ash slag from the main boiler at the Boardman Power Plant (right).

Dave Rodgers - Plant Manager “I’ve been at this for a long time. And it seems like you’re always kind of preoccupied with the plant. So if you’re at home, you get a phone call, you wonder: ‘Is this the plant?’ You get a phone call late at night, on the weekend or any night, you know: It’s the plant. You’re always thinking ahead — what’s the next shoe that’s gonna drop? I feel really good about what I’ve done. What I try and tell people is: We produced power for people to use and at a fair and reasonable rate. When I go down to Portland, I always feel pretty good walking around seeing all the lights, going to a soccer game. There’s nothing better in life than to eat, drink and know that your work is good. And our work here has been really good. And the people here made the plant. What we did is something that was needed.”

26 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Chief Corpus - Shift Supervisor “I came to work with Portland General Electric purely by accident. We were married, two kids and the third one on the way. We decided to take a break from school, and my in-laws lived up here in Boardman. The only place that had a decent wage was PGE. When I got here, the plant only had a year of runtime, so, essentially, I had 40 years of work. So, I’m thinking, I can work here my whole career. I missed it by 10 years. It’s kind of like an impending doom. Here I was with the prospect of being 55 and unemployed. The way the industry changed, it’s not like there’s other coal plants to go to, and I like it here. I went back to school and finished up a bachelor’s. I teach night classes down at the junior college. I’m on a decommission crew for a couple more years. Then I’ll retire and see where life takes me.”

Paz Barraza - Work Control Center Supervisor “On the last day (burning coal), I filled in for a control operator. I was actually one of the ones who helped shut down the unit. It didn’t hit me until then: Wow, we’re not going to run this anymore. That’s kind of when it hit me. It’s not like it was out of the blue. I would have been more impacted by that. I kind of just see it as a process that needs to be done. I knew hiring into this job that we’d be shutting down, so I don’t think it really affected me. One thing I think of is the impact it has on the community. It’s a small community they have in Boardman. It’s not like big counties or big cities. So they’re losing this, but they still have the gas plant, so that should provide some economic relief.”

The control room of the Boardman Power Plant (left). High-voltage electrical transmission lines in Boardman, Oregon (right).

FEBRUARY 2021 27

LIFE AFTER COAL Diné activist Nicole Horseherder’s long quest for equity from the rise and fall of the coal economy.

By Jessica Kutz | Photos by Cassidy Araiza

ON A CHILLY December morning est coal-fired power plant in the were destroyed for strip-mining, in northern Arizona, near the town Western United States. It supplied while coal mining depleted the of Page, Nicole Horseherder stood electricity to millions of customers area’s only source of drinking water. beside a barbed-wire fence, waiting in Arizona, California and Nevada, Coal miners got sick, and many for the smokestacks of the Navajo using coal from Black Mesa, where residents still suffer from asthma, Generating Station to fall. The coal- Horseherder lives. As she spoke, she including Horseherder’s mother fired power plant, just a mile away, acknowledged the economic bene- and two of her daughters. towered against the backdrop of the fits the plant had brought to the Now she’s charting a new path Glen Canyon National Recreation region. “But it has also had devas- forward for the Diné people as the Area and a cloudless blue sky. tating impacts to the environment coal economy fades — a compli- As they waited, Horseherder, and to some of our most valuable cated quest, since coal has long a Diné (Navajo) environmental elements of life, such as water,” she been an integral part of life on “Thirty years activist, and her husband, Marshall said, leaning into the microphone. the nation. The industry brought Johnson, spoke into a phone The towers shifted and slowly, high-paying jobs that sustained of strip- camera trained on the power plant. almost gracefully, began to tilt. families for generations. Many They were livestreaming the demo- The first smokestack began to former plant workers were there to mining have lition on Facebook. Horseherder’s crumble. Explosives crackled, and watch the demolition that morn- hands were nestled in the pock- Horseherder could feel the earth ing. “For the older folks like my dad, devastated ets of her long tan wool jacket, its move through the soles of her boots. that is where they worked,” Irvin tassels swaying at her ankles. She And then, one after another, they Frank Jr., the son of a former steam- the land and and Johnson switched between hit the ground with a thundering pump mechanic at the plant, told English and Navajo as they spoke boom, leaving a cloud of gray dust me. “That’s how they supported disrupted to the tens of thousands of people in their wake. The demolition was their family over time.” who had tuned in to watch. the culmination of years of work: Over the years, Horseherder the life The Navajo Generating Horseherder has been fighting the has attended public hearings and Station, which opened in 1974 ravages of the coal industry for testified in front of lawmakers, of many and operated for decades before nearly two decades. In her lifetime, from the reservation to Washing- shuttering in 2019, was the larg- thousands of acres of Black Mesa ton, D.C., advocating for an end to people.”

A crowd gathers as the smokestacks of the Navajo Generating Station come down in December outside Page, Arizona.

FEBRUARY 2021 29 “Why would you leave to go do something else when the blueprint for a good life is right there?”

extractive energy economies. She’s economy — one powered by wind Though some states like New often been the lone voice in the and solar — is coming more clearly Mexico and Colorado have recently room — confronting not only the into view. “No matter how frus- passed laws that together provide coal companies and private inter- trated I get, sometimes with the millions of dollars for workforce ests, but also her own neighbors way tribal government works or training and economic support and tribal government. Now that with how hard it is sometimes to for coal-dependent communities, the Navajo Generating Station has educate people and the commu- other states, including Arizona and Nicole Horseherder and her closed and other power plants in nity — still, it’s the right thing to Nevada, have not. Horseherder is husband, Marshall Johnson, on the day the Navajo Generating Station the region are soon to follow, her do,” Horseherder told me. “And it’s demanding support directly from smokestacks came down. vision of a more sustainable energy a worthwhile thing to do.” utilities and industry. It’s a moral

30 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS imperative, she says. “We’re trying springs to dry up. Peabody disputes the tribes’ water was depleted to THE BIG BREAKDOWN to compel them to provide some this. In an email to HCN, a company slurry coal, the energy their land kind of transition support for the spokesperson stated that the aqui- produced powered the Central Navajo Nation instead of just walk- fer “is healthy and robust,” some- Arizona Project, an extensive canal ing away and leaving — leaving the thing that is “well documented system, which used the electricity 243 NGS plant and leaving the commu- through decades of public and to move water from the Colorado Number of Westmoreland Coal nities behind,” Horseherder said. private study.” However, accord- River down to Phoenix and Tucson. Company’s 1,732 U.S. employees receiving “valued employees” The demolition of the Navajo ing to the U.S. Geological Survey, Development was booming outside retention bonuses in 2018 while the Generating Station marks the some of the wells on the mesa had the reservation, but families like company was in bankruptcy proceed- decline of coal in the West. And, if been in decline for decades. They the Horseherders hauled water ings, because those employees “are Horseherder is successful in her only stabilized in 2010, a change from community wells at chapter critical to the Debtors’ business oper- work, it will also symbolize the that one environmental researcher houses miles away to care for their ations and efforts to preserve and maximize stakeholder value.” beginning of what she calls “a just linked to the closure of Peabody’s homes and animals. transition”: A new, more equita- slurry operation. In the 1990s, Vernon Masayesva, ble relationship with the energy The aquifer was Black Mesa’s a former Hopi tribal chairman and a 8 economy — “one in which there only source of drinking water in vocal critic of Peabody’s aquifer use, Number of those employees who had is mutual benefit between the a region that, in some years, gets began hosting talks about coal’s “mining” in their title. Navajo Nation and its partners,” just six inches of rain. Horseherder impact on local water. He eventu- Horseherder said. and others who lived on the mesa, ally formed a nonprofit called the Thousands of including members of the Hopi Black Mesa Trust. It was during one employees in the coal BLACK MESA, A PLATEAU that Tribe, whose land lies entirely of these meetings that Horseherder mining industry rises thousands of feet above the within the Navajo Nation, didn’t pieced together what had happened Painted Desert, has been home to want their precious water carried to the springs of her childhood. She Horseherder’s people for centu- away to burn coal. had recently moved back to Black ries. Her parents, like the gener- For decades, U.S. mining laws Mesa, after completing her master’s ations that came before, were favored corporations and cleared in linguistics from the University nomadic sheepherders. On breaks the way for industry to exploit of British Columbia. At a meeting from school during her childhood, tribal lands under the guise of tribal about how to drum up awareness of Horseherder would wake while it consultation. Oil prospectors nego- the water situation, a former tribal was still dark to lead her family’s tiated with a Navajo tribal govern- leader told her, “Somebody needs to sheep to water. She remembers ing body, which was formed in do this work, and I think that person digging in the dry, sandy arroyo for 1923 by the Department of Interior has to be you.” Horseherder didn’t a seep, waiting for water to well up for the express purpose of energy hesitate. for the sheep to drink. When she development on Indigenous land. She first consulted with elders returned home a decade later, she Too often it was a lopsided rela- to figure out: “OK, how do we do Year found that the land had changed. tionship, where most of the bene- this? How do we start this?” Later “I discovered that the seeps had fits of ownership flowed off the that year, she and Marshall John- vanished,” she wrote in High Coun- reservation. On Black Mesa in the son, her husband, founded their try News in 2013. “The springs at all 1960s, for example, a Utah lawyer own organization — Tó Nizhóní Ání, of the camps from my childhood named John Boyden formed an ille- which means “sacred water speaks” were drying up.” gitimate council that did not have — to halt the use of the N-aquifer Beginning in the late 1960s, majority support from the Hopi for the Black Mesa coal mine. For the water that Horseherder’s Tribe. Through this “puppet coun- Horseherder, it also came down to family depended on was diverted cil,” he negotiated on behalf of the protecting her children and future to transport coal through a slurry tribe and sold mineral and water generations on Black Mesa. “I know line, 273 miles from a mine on leases to Peabody at exorbitantly outside people just have a hard time Black Mesa to the Mohave Gener- low rates: $1.67 per acre-foot of understanding that it’s home. There ating Station in Laughlin, Nevada. water at a time when that water was are just so many generations of your At the time, Peabody Energy, the worth far more than that. Accord- family that have existed there and coal-mining company that owned ing to legal files unearthed by a have been living there,” she told me. the operation, pumped nearly 3.3 University of Colorado law profes- “Why would you leave to go do some- million gallons of water a day out sor, Boyden was on Peabody’s thing else when the blueprint for a of the Navajo Aquifer, known as payroll at the same time he was good life is right there?” the N-aquifer. According to the working for the Hopi. Natural Resources Defense Coun- Many residents of the Navajo WHEN HORSEHERDER BEGAN $1.2 million cil, or NRDC, an environmental Nation still lack electricity in their organizing in 2001, some of the Amount paid in employee incentive bonuses to Westmoreland CFO nonprofit, Peabody’s pumping homes, but for decades their coal largest strip-mining operations in Gary Kohn in the month prior to his depressurized the aquifer, lower- made the lights on the Las Vegas the United States were on Black December 2018 resignation from the ing the water table and causing the Strip visible from space. While Mesa. Horseherder and Masayesva company.

FEBRUARY 2021 31 were part of a growing resistance, but they were not yet representative of a larger tribal opposition. After attending a Navajo tribal government meeting, Horseherder realized that Black Mesa’s concerns weren’t registering with tribal officials in Window Rock, where the government offices are located. She set out to change that. She and her husband, Johnson, devised a strategy: They would visit chapter houses, the local govern- ing bodies on the Navajo Nation, and present their argument. Their community’s only source of drinking water was in jeopardy, and in a region with so little precipitation, they wanted that water to stay in the ground. In those early days, Horseherder raised their children — at that time, a baby and a tween — while Johnson traveled for his job as an ironworker. They spent mornings tuning into the Navajo-language radio station KTNN, often listening outside the house and in their car, “because you know how we had noisy kids back then,” Horseherder said. As the announcer rattled off the schedule, Nation formally voted against the need to keep the plant running. For they would jot down the locations use of the aquifer for the slurry “(They) sold Horseherder, it was a major win. “It of that week’s chapter-house meet- line, that cemented the deal. “The motivated us to keep working for ings, which they would sometimes resolution changed everything,” the water the things that we knew to be true,” travel many miles to attend. They’d Horseherder told the Los Angeles she told me. “And that is that (this bring poster boards covered with Times. “It meant that if the mine right out is) our homeland. And there’s no information and make their case continued using the Navajo aquifer, one else that’s going to protect it — directly to the community. If the it did so directly against the wishes from under except us.” chapter houses voted to oppose and requests of the Navajo tribe.” Over the years, Horseherder Peabody’s pumping of the aquifer, “Thirty years of strip-mining us to some and other Black Mesa residents Horseherder could take those reso- have devastated the land and mounted opposition against lutions to the Navajo Tribal Council, disrupted the life of many people,” company numerous proposals that hoping that it would do the same. Horseherder wrote in her testi- attempted to expand or prolong the By March of 2003, she had mony to a California Public Utility that doesn’t life of coal mining on Black Mesa — secured 11 resolutions from 14 of the Commission at the time. “As the a second mine, the Kayenta Mine, chapter houses that were directly Chapter Resolutions show, the local give a shit was still operational, carrying coal impacted by the coal mining. people are united in this position. to NGS by train. She conducted her (They’d go on to secure dozens; We have to stop the groundwater about us.” own community health surveys, there are 110 chapter houses on the pumping.” showing the impact of the air pollu- Navajo Nation.) In June of that year, In 2005, thanks in part to the tion on asthma rates near the mines, the Navajo Tribal Council voted to organizing efforts of the Black and she often brought residents approve the resolution, formally Mesa Trust and Tó Nizhóní Ání, from Black Mesa to speak in front making the nation’s position clear: the Mohave Generating Station of the tribal council. She frequently The tribe wanted to cease pump- closed. The owners, facing a dead- found herself in opposition to tribal ing the N-aquifer for the coal slurry line to install expensive pollution government officials who wanted that powered the Mohave Generat- controls, could not prove to the to keep the mines and power plants ing Station. Peabody had already California Public Utility Commis- open. At a coffee shop this fall, begun looking for alternative water sion that they would have access A water tank on the Navajo Nation Horseherder told me that some- sources, but when the Navajo to the water and coal they would off Highway 89 in Arizona. times she felt the tribal government

32 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS prioritized corporations over the offered to relocate all of its workers Over the years, the company THE BIG BREAKDOWN people. Raising her voice, she said: from the power plant. The company has chosen not to work with orga- “(They) sold the water right out from has re-hired more than 300 people nizers like Horseherder. “They’ll under us to some company that at other, often far-away, facilities. never reach out and say, ‘You know, doesn’t give a shit about us. Once As Horseherder draws up the we hear your concerns. Can we (Peabody is) done mining, they’re blueprints for a future where the come to some kind of reasonable $54 million Total annual royalties, bonus going to leave, and they don’t care.” relationship between energy econ- agreement?’ ” she told me over the payments and water-use fees paid With NGS shuttered, omies and local communities is phone this fall. Horseherder, who to the Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Horseherder is focusing on clean more equitable from the start, she’s maintains a calm and measured Nation by the owners of both the energy for the Navajo Nation by also pushing to make companies manner in all conversations, Navajo Generating Station and the building support for renewable like SRP and Peabody pay. So far, seemed to be holding back tears. Kayenta Coal Mine, which were lost when the plant and mine shut down. energy projects. Her organization she’s helped secure millions for her “They won’t even suggest dialogue.” and other grassroots groups, includ- community. SRP has agreed to pay Peabody still hasn’t filed a $20.6 million ing the Black Mesa Water Coali- $110 million to the Navajo Nation significant permit revision, as is Compensation paid to Peabody CEO tion and Diné CARE, have pushed over the next 35 years and is looking required by law after the mine’s Glen Kellow in 2017 as the company the Navajo Nation to develop a to buy up to 200 megawatts of solar closure. Horseherder has been exited bankruptcy. Peabody owns the now-closed Kayenta Coal Mine. more progressive energy policy in sited on the Nation. The utility urging the tribal government to recent years. “They’ve succeeded company, Arizona Public Service, demand this revision, because it 2,785 in making the conversation about has pledged $144 million for tran- would trigger a full environmen- Number of coal-mining fatalities in transition,” said Andrew Curley, a sition assistance, economic devel- tal impact statement, opening the U.S. in 1913. Diné scholar and assistant profes- opment and electrification for the reclamation to public comment 12 sor at the University of Arizona who Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe and the and bringing transparency to the Fatalities in 2019. studies the relationship between communities near the Cholla Power process. “This really is the last coal and the Navajo Nation. “There Plant in Joseph City. If approved by opportunity for the tribes to have 5 was even reluctance about that the Arizona Corporation Commis- a say in what reclamation looks Fatalities in 2020. initially. There was a perspective sion, the state public utilities like,” said Eric Frankowski, the 20 million that coal doesn’t need to transition.” commission, it will be the largest executive director of the Western Metric tons of carbon dioxide-equiva- That transition has been pain- amount pledged for an equitable Clean Energy Campaign, which lent greenhouse gases emitted by the ful. The Navajo Generating Station transition by a utility company in works with Horseherder. It’s also Navajo Generating Station (CO2) and and Peabody paid approximately the United States. the final chance to review the the Kayenta Mine (methane) annually $40 million in the 2019 fiscal year So far, Peabody has proven damages to the N-aquifer and fight while they were in operation. to the Navajo Nation and millions the most difficult to deal with by for reclamation of the groundwater. 472; 4,370; 259 more to the Hopi. (In 2016, money far. The company has submitted Frankowski said, “If the permit is Pounds of mercury, arsenic and from the industry accounted for a request to the Office of Surface renewed and rubber-stamped as selenium, respectively, emitted nearly 80% of the tribe’s budget.) Mining, a federal regulatory agency, is, it lasts for another five years.” by the Navajo Generating Station These royalties and leasing income to delay much of the reclamation Peabody maintains that it will annually when it was still operating. funded essential government work, which involves returning resume reclamation work once 1.3 million services like education and health the open coal pits to workable pandemic-related restrictions are Tons of coal combustion waste care. “Everybody wants to talk in land, until 2022 at the earliest. The lifted and that it remains “commit- produced by the plant each year. the language of economics,” Curley company doesn’t have the best track ted to restoring the land as a vital said. But it’s more than that; people record. In 2015, nearly a decade part of the mining process.” 9 billion gallons Amount of water drawn from Lake forge identities around coal. “The after it closed the Black Mesa Mine, Powell each year for steam gener- dynamics that are often underap- the Bureau of Indian Affairs called ABOUT TWO HOURS from ation and cooling at the plant. This preciated are the social (and) polit- its reclamation work inadequate, Horseherder’s home on Black Mesa, was all consumptive use, meaning ical dynamics.” stating that some of the land had just outside the town of Kayenta, a none of this water was returned to For many families, it was a taken on “moonscape surface new future is beginning to take the source. tragedy to see coal jobs disappear. features” due to poor topsoiling and shape. There, the tribe’s first solar 3 million Last August, Peabody laid off its backfilling. Horseherder also fears facility supplies energy to 36,000 Megawatt-hours of electricity the workers, even though many could what could happen to reclamation homes on the Navajo Nation. The Central Arizona Project uses to lift, have transitioned to reclamation if the coal-mining company goes Kayenta Solar Plant was built in transport and deliver 1.6 million work — jobs that, according to the into bankruptcy — a likely possi- 2016. From the road, the solar acre-feet of Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson annually — Institute for Energy Economics bility, since Peabody announced panels are arranged in rows like enough to power about 240,000 and Financial Analysis, would have in November that it would have a vineyard, blending in with the Arizona homes for one year. Most kept approximately 200 people trouble meeting financial obliga- sandstone mesa behind them. of that power previously came from employed for at least two years tions. For more than a year now, The project is relatively small; it the Navajo Generating Station. at the Kayenta Mine. Others were rolling mounds of coal have sat provides approximately 55 mega- 15,000 more fortunate; the Salt River Proj- at the Kayenta Mine in open pits watts of solar energy, compared Approximate number of households ect, or SRP, the company that oper- spanning thousands of acres across to the 2,200 megawatts-capacity on the Navajo Nation that lack elec- ated the Navajo Generating Station, Black Mesa. produced by the Navajo Generat- tricity.

FEBRUARY 2021 33 ing Station. Still, it’s one example the coal companies of the past, technologies involved, whether that of a growing effort by the tribal he’s working with the community, “(This is) our be solar or wind?” he said. If “we’re government to bring renewables to building out infrastructure that selling (energy) to Phoenix and the nation. Navajo President Jona- ultimately benefits Navajo. Eighty homeland. Tucson, and suddenly there’s some- than Nez has been increasingly percent of his company’s profits thing else that comes on the hori- vocal about steering the nation will go toward community bene- And there’s zon and they don’t want our wind toward clean energy. “For the many fits and investment in new proj- anymore (and) they don’t want our who have called upon our Nation’s ects. Black Mesa resident Wahleah no one else solar, who is going to be left to clean leaders to transition away from our Johns started Native Renewables, a up the cost? Again, it’s going to be overdependence on fossil fuels,” nonprofit. She builds off-grid solar that’s going us to bear the cost of the transition. Nez wrote in 2019, in what’s now projects and leads workforce train- “Energy is a dangerous game to known as the Sunrise Proclamation. ing programs, including for some to protect it get into,” Curley continued. “If you “The Navajo Nation will strive for a former coal miners. “We see off-grid do clean energy in a colonial setting, balanced energy portfolio and will solar as a solution to making home — except us.” you’re still in a colonial setting.” pursue and prioritize clean renew- stronger,” she said. “When a family Horseherder agrees: A new energy able energy development for the member can manage their energy economy must be structured differ- long-term benefit of the Navajo load and own their power, that’s ently than the relationships of the People and our communities.” part of the self-determination and past. That’s the whole point: “We Horseherder’s work securing self-reliance that we are trying to want to make sure that there’s clear transition assistance and obliga- attain, as a nation and as a people.” guidelines as to how to operate proj- tions for new energy contracts Curley, who has studied past ects on the reservation, especially could help Diné entrepreneurs get energy transitions, is cautiously for outside entities, but also for the investments and infrastruc- optimistic but worries about inside Navajo developers,” she said. ture they need to be successful in the existing dynamics around this energy future. Brett Isaac, for extraction and exploitation. “We AS THE DECEMBER demolition example, grew up near Kayenta in were part of an energy economy for The Kayenta Solar Project livestreamed over Horseherder’s an area called Baby Rocks. In 2018, 50 years. (Coal) transitioned out, outside Kayenta, Arizona, is cellphone, Diné teachers made he cofounded a company called and we were left with all of its costs. Navajo-owned and the first their students watch the smoke- large-scale solar project on the Navajo Power. He’s developing a … How do we prevent that from Navajo Nation. stacks fall from afar. As the towers 750-megawatt project, but, unlike happening again, regardless of the Christie Hemm Klok disappeared into a pile of dust, people cheered, and those in cars honked their horns. Others teared up. “A lot of people that were here this morning to watch this demolition are expressing their sadness to see it go,” Horseherder told her audience. “But, in addition, there are a lot of people here who are looking forward to a renewal of the economy and a renewal of a way of life that doesn’t rely on this coal industrial complex.” The COVID-19 pandemic was still raging, and the Navajo Nation was closed to visitors. Still, hundreds of people gathered to witness the demolition in person. Sam Minkler, a Diné photographer and associate professor at Northern Arizona University, drove up from Flagstaff to document what he called “the end of coal.” For him, it was the beginning of a new chapter — one that could be more sustainable for the people and the planet. He, like Horseherder, thinks renewable energy should come next. “The sun is very powerful,” he said. “It runs the earth.”

34 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS PERSPECTIVE

Mountaintop removal threatens traditional Blackfoot territory Stop the Grassy Mountain coal project before it starts.

BY ROSALYN LAPIER Mountaintop removal mining in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. Callum Gunn

MY GRANDMOTHER lived to be its to open-pit coal mining since U.S., however, oppose it, because a new grassroots Indigenous envi- 97 years old. Throughout her life, 1976. However, Alberta surprised of concern over potential environmental justice group, the Niits- she went to the Rocky Mountains the public by withdrawing this ronmental degradation, pollution itapi Water Protectors. They fear and their foothills to gather plants policy last June, thereby opening and curtailed access to traditional that their communities will expe- for Blackfoot ceremonies, medicine the region to coal development. A natural landscapes. There are also rience the same human health and and food. Every day, at sunrise and federal joint-review panel held fears about the fossil fuel indus- environmental degradation issues sunset, she prayed to the divine. a public hearing in November. try’s connection to the missing and that they have seen in other Indig- Never in her life did she worry if Final deliberations, and possi- murdered Indigenous women crisis enous communities in the Rocky the mountains or the plants would ble approval of the project, are in Canada and the U.S. Mountains. be there. It was a given. expected this summer. Concerned citizens do not need The Niitsitapi Water Protectors Today, the Rocky Mountains Alberta argued that its coal to travel far to see examples of the argue that even though tribal lead- that lie within Blackfoot traditional policy was “obsolete.” Alberta desecration they fear. ership was contacted years ago territory are threatened with moun- Environment Minister Jason Nixon The British Columbia side of about the Grassy Mountain proj- taintop removal. The Grassy Moun- stated in a news release that Alberta the Rocky Mountains has five ect, the community at large did not tain coal project in Alberta, Canada, was “striking the balance of ensur- large mountaintop removal oper- know about the coal project until is slated to begin coal extraction in ing strong environmental protec- ations. Areas near the mines and the public hearing in November. fall 2021. It is expected to be profit- tion with providing industry with downstream from them have expe- I applaud these kinds of commu- able for only 25 years. However, by incentive to increase investment.” rienced selenium pollution, in nity efforts and Indigenous-led then the almost 4,000-acre project Locals worry about potential water addition to landscape desecration. environmental justice groups. We will have blasted the terrain with and air pollution and their effects Selenium in high levels is toxic: need to address the potential risks, explosives, separating the substrata on human health. But on a global In British Columbia, government and permanent impacts, of coal from the coal and creating a new scale, the most serious long-term studies have shown that it has extraction on our Blackfoot land. rock-scape the size of almost 3,000 impacts will be on the growing contaminated and deformed fish In 1895, Blackfeet leader White American football fields. climate crisis. Several other Rocky and polluted local water supplies. Calf famously lamented, “Chief When this happens, where will Mountain coal projects are also Downstream and across the Mountain is my head. Now my head Blackfoot grandmothers go for waiting for approval. border, the state of Montana is is cut off,” after the U.S. govern- plants? The Grassy Mountain project taking action. Recently, the state’s ment swindled the tribe, taking the As an ethnobotanist trained by has been in the works for five years. Department of Environmental mountain away. my grandmother, as well as by an During that time, Australia’s River- Quality passed new environmental Now, Grassy Mountain, just 100 environmental studies professor, I dale Resources contacted tribal regulations to lower the amount of kilometers north, is slated to face believe the Grassy Mountain project leadership, including the Piikani selenium in Montana waters flow- immeasurable violence. Its head, should be stopped before it begins. and Kainai nations, both Blackfoot ing from Canada. and our Blackfoot way of life, might Places where mountaintop coal tribes, as required by Canadian Meanwhile, the unreclaimed literally be cut off. removal occurs are never the same; law. Riverdale also sought letters mined landscape in British Colum- just look at West Virginia, where of support for the project, which the bia looks like a moonscape. Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis), mountain areas once rich with biodi- operators got in exchange for minor It is these kinds of issues local Ph.D., is an award-winning Indig- verse forests have been reduced to considerations. citizens and Indigenous people enous writer, ethnobotanist and barren desolation. And, as my grand- There is some local support for hope to avoid by stopping the environmental activist. She is an as- mother taught me, disturbed areas the project because of its poten- Grassy Mountain project. sociate professor of environmental are not places to practice Blackfoot tial opportunities for employment Young Kainai citizens who studies at the University of Montana traditional knowledge. and economic growth. A growing believe that the mountains are their and a research associate at the Na- The Alberta foothills and Rocky number of Blackfoot and Indige- ancestors are organizing to stop the tional Museum of Natural History, Mountains have been off-lim- nous people in both Canada and the Grassy Mountain project through Smithsonian Institution.

FEBRUARY 2021 35 PERSPECTIVE

How Wyoming’s Black coal miners shaped their own history Many early Wyoming coal towns had thriving Black communities.

BY BRIGIDA R. BLASI

TODAY, THE SAGE and sandstone of housing, routinely integrated neighborhoods. The Wyoming’s vast Red Desert show little evidence of thinking went that if members of a specific ethnic the coal-mining town of Dana, which once stood group were not housed together, they would be less about 150 miles west of Cheyenne. No photos of likely to form unions. There were exceptions to this Dana have ever been found, but in 1890 it prob- company rule: Native Americans weren’t sought ably looked much like southwestern Wyoming’s out at all, and company bosses saw Chinese, Japa- other Union Pacific Coal Company towns: a few nese and Korean workers as simply too different boardinghouses, a company-contracted general from other groups to integrate. Though the fight store and just enough basic amenities to keep the for workers’ rights went on for decades, in the long town functioning. The main feature likely would run, the company’s tactics failed, as unions such as Front-page photo of James E. Shepperson from the defunct Black newspaper, the Seattle Republican, on have been the tipple, where coal was processed. the Knights of Labor became ever more integrated Oct. 26, 1900. Though largely forgotten, Dana was once home and influential. to a significant population of Black miners, orig- In a time of intense labor disputes, strike- inally recruited by a well-known Washington breakers were met with scorn and sometimes state politician and community leader, James violence, particularly when they were members helped influence legislation regulating how coal E. Shepperson. of an already disparaged ethnic group. More- was weighed — and thus how much miners were In 1890, the UPCC hired Shepperson to over, according to newspaper accounts, the Black paid — effectively ending the strike. As for the recruit the first Black miners specifically enlisted miners in Dana were union men themselves. town of Dana, it was one of only two Wyoming to work in the company’s Wyoming mines. He Because of this, they refused to “usurp striking communities to ever have a majority Black popu- was a Black man who had migrated from Virginia brothers,” the white miners they were brought in to lation. But it was short-lived. In 1891, due to the to Roslyn, Washington, where he led the charge replace. By this time, the whole affair was making inferior quality of its coal, the UPCC closed the to bring more Black citizens to town. Working for headlines, and the company needed a cover story. mine, and many of Dana’s Black miners moved to the Northern Pacific Railway, he brought roughly So, whether through miscommunication, deliber- nearby Wyoming coal towns. By the 1920s, places 300 miners to Roslyn, where they forged a strong ate misrepresentation or outright company duplic- like Rock Springs and Hanna had thriving Black community. Shepperson had made a name for ity, Shepperson became an easy scapegoat. communities. When coal production decreased himself as a successful recruiter of Black miners, One night soon after he arrived, Shepperson in the 1940s and 1950s, many of their descendants and so the UPCC hired him to bring workers to found himself in a dark, freezing barn, hiding left for areas that offered more opportunity, such Dana. In early February 1890, about 200 Black from his own recruits: Company officials had as Denver. As a result, the role of Black residents miners from the Ohio area, accompanied by their told the newspapers that Shepperson was solely in the story of these early coal towns has often families, stepped off a train in Dana — completely to blame for misleading the Black miners about been skewed or forgotten altogether. unaware that the company wanted to use them as their status as strikebreakers. He was threat- Whether Shepperson deliberately recruited strikebreakers. ened, detained and questioned, but the details the Dana miners as strikebreakers will probably Recruiting laborers for the coal mines and of that night are lost. Somehow, however, Shep- never be known. He certainly realized that the fighting labor organizers were nothing new for person escaped, and resumed his life in Wash- men would already face challenges wherever the UPCC. As coal production grew in the late ington, where he was known as an honest man they went in the U.S. due to the color of their skin. 1800s, company officials, like all good industri- who worked to strengthen the Black community Companies that brought workers across oceans alists, focused on profits. They did this by hiring in Roslyn. Among his many other accomplish- didn’t recruit experienced Black miners from laborers from impoverished areas, primarily ments, he was a founder of the Black Masonic just a few states away until the era of the fight in Europe and Asia — people they could entice Lodge and president of the Washington State for workers’ rights. But the West, despite these with tenuous promises of riches, land or at least Colored Republican Club. He remained promi- barriers, still offered Black miners a chance at opportunity. nent in Roslyn until his death in 1934 and is now prosperity — and people like Shepperson made These recruitment practices inadvertently remembered as one of the most influential Black it happen. created some of the most ethnically diverse mining leaders during that time. communities in the region. In the early days, the Most of Shepperson’s recruits stayed on at Brigida R. Blasi is a public historian and museum company, which owned and assigned all worker the Dana mine after their insistence on a fair wage professional. She lives in Laramie, Wyoming.

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FEBRUARY 2021 37 38 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS FEBRUARY 2021 39 Lauren Crow / HCN

IN MID-DECEMBER, a federal based on need, not profit. survey found that more than 1.5 Even before the pandemic, million Californians were behind approximately 53% of California on rent, while more than 2.5 million renters spent more than a third of had little to no confidence that their household income on rent, they’d be able to make their rent in with about a quarter spending more January. The Biden administration Is it time to decolonize than half on it. People of color and extended a federal eviction morato- working-class renters are partic- rium through March, but tenants the housing market? ularly likely to face this hardship. across the West are bracing for evic- Meanwhile, California’s intense real tion when that moratorium ends. In California, COVID-19 is exacerbating estate speculation only increases According to Jackie Fielder (Two housing inequities. Indigenous activist Jackie Fielder gentrification and displacement. Kettle Lakota and Hidatsa), who is believes she has a solution. In 2020, Fielder campaigned queer, Latina and a former candi- on the need for radical change in date for the California State Senate BY JESSICA DOUGLAS the for-profit housing system. High in San Francisco, the cause of Cali- Country News recently spoke with fornia’s housing inequities is far her about California’s housing bigger than COVID-19. It stretches crisis, its roots in settler colonial- back to colonization, when, she ism, and the future of tenant rights. said, “the commodification of only be housed if one has enough take hold on this land.” Instead, This conversation has been edited housing — the idea that one should resources to pay for it — began to Fielder proposes a housing market for length and clarity.

40 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS What is the housing crisis in What can history teach us about The Centers for Disease wealthiest cities and suburbs to California? the current moment we’re in now Control and Prevention (CDC) neglect their responsibilities in The crisis is that most renters are in terms of housing equity? has extended the eviction building housing while reaping what we call “rent burdened,” I always tell people, before there moratorium. After that, many the benefits of tremendous which means that they’re paying were skyscrapers in San Francisco, renters across the country may economic growth throughout more than 30% of their income before there were paved roads and owe months of rent and face the region.” How is this history on rent — and that was before the this whole infrastructure — before, eviction. How will this further playing out in California? pandemic. Now we have thousands really, settler colonialism — there exacerbate our housing crisis? The housing system prioritizes of people who are facing eviction, was an entire existing society here. In a pandemic — where we’re seeing housing the wealthiest people first, and also the daunting responsibil- There were more than 15 million thousands of people being evicted and everyone else, largely low-in- ity of paying all the rent that they people here before any settler set because they cannot afford to pay come people of color, gets pushed may have missed in the months of foot on this continent. In the time rent, either because they’re unem- around to wherever. They are the the pandemic (during) which they leading up to settler (colonialism), ployed or someone in their house- last to get housed, because they can were not employed. there was an entire society of people hold has lost employment — if we least afford to decide where to live. Gentrification, in some areas, who understood how to allocate don’t cancel rent, if we don’t add a There is no freedom of being able to is (also) the housing crisis. That’s resources in a way where everyone gigantic stimulus in the realm of live wherever you want to, it’s what- been the case for low-income had housing, and health care was hundreds of billions of dollars to ever you can afford to pay. Because communities of color here in San a guarantee, as long as every indi- renters, we’re going to see an explo- wealth is so extremely linked with Francisco and across California. vidual to their ability contributed sion of homelessness. We’re going race, we have a racialized and clas- Gentrification is basically the to society. to see more cases of coronavirus sist housing system. process of low-income, work- To me, housing has been and is because people are jam-packed in ing-class people being forced to a guaranteed right, especially when households. That’s the harsh real- How might we transition to a move anywhere cheaper than their we’re talking about Indigenous ity, and I don’t think that we’ve need-based housing system? current communities, which are cultures. But that’s not guaranteed seen the worst of it. I think it’s We have to find the funding. This then exploited by real estate devel- in this current economic system, going to be a long time until we see election cycle, San Francisco passed opers to sell to newer, wealthier, because it is a vehicle for profit the actual devastating effects of a ballot measure that increased largely whiter classes of profes- maximization and speculation. this economic downturn. (how much) the city (could) tax the sionals. sale of properties worth over $10 If we continue to ignore the real- When running for California Why haven’t elected politicians million. This will provide funding ities that gentrification and displace- State Senate, you campaigned done more to address the for rent relief, and affordable hous- ment have caused, we’re not going to on moving to a housing system housing crisis in California? ing for low- and middle-income be able to reach our goals of afford- based on need, not profit. Can For people who actually have the people. That’s just one such mech- able housing for everyone. you explain the difference power, I don’t think that they could anism to do so. between a market-based and a care any less. They accept money I am part of a wave around the What is causing this housing need-based housing system? from the real estate lobbies, and nation of politicos and organizers crisis? Market-based housing is what we those real estate lobbies are really calling for housing to be recognized It’s a problem of disinvestment have now, where each person is pushing to make sure that they as a human right and invested in as from the federal and state govern- allocated housing according to have power to evict people — even such. That means committing seri- ments in developing truly afford- what they can afford, not neces- in a pandemic, even without a just ous investments to make sure that able housing. sarily what they need. Here in the cause. everyone, not just the wealthy, has We’ve entrusted the devel- Bay Area, that means that there are Until (politicians) reject that decent, safe, affordable housing. opment of housing to the private thousands of people that go with- kind of money, they’re not going The least we can do, the bare markets, which (are) largely Wall out shelter and many that go with- to be in a position to negotiate on minimum, is ensure a legal right to Street-backed, and we have a glut of out stable, adequate housing in the behalf of everyday people. I don’t representation for anyone facing luxury homes — thousands of vacant most basic sense. care what political party any elected eviction. Another one would be units across the state — where we (Housing) according to need official is in, if they’re not advocat- a landlord-licensing system to need thousands of affordable units. would be a system in which the ing for canceling rent or mortgages, ensure that tenants have access to (Housing) also faces the chal- government could fund, guaran- they’re leaving everyone else to as much information about land- lenge of remaining affordable. If, tee and coordinate the allocation hang in the dust. I actually do think lords as possible, where they decide for example, a private equity group of housing, no matter what anyone people will be left to languish in the to pay their income to and live. on Wall Street decides to purchase could afford. streets unless there’s some gigantic I think that will take time. It will a building, it will be long lost to the protest movement. But I don’t know take organizing. It will take much private market, instead of being What are the drawbacks of a if that will materialize. more than just one person getting maintained at affordable prices. need-based housing system? elected to office. But even informing I don’t see any. In my opinion, On your campaign website, people and educating them that this You see the nation’s housing if housing is a human right, it you wrote that “decades of is not the only system to live by is a crisis as a problem that is not needs the protection of the federal exclusionary zoning since crucial aspect of making those big new to the United States, but government and the state govern- the days of redlining and ideas practical. instead is rooted in its founding. ment to make it so. white flight have allowed the

FEBRUARY 2021 41 PERSPECTIVE

Remembering William Kittredge The beloved teacher and writer was preoccupied with the particular.

BY KATE SCHIMEL

42 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Nevada and the sagebrush sea to the east. His Kittredge loved the particular, but sought a family ranched and hunted in the area, and he universal. “We yearn to escape the demons of helped with both. He wrote beautifully about our subjectivity,” he wrote in Hole in the Sky. the entire stretch of land, from the Alvord Desert “We yearn to sense we are in absolute touch and Steens Mountain to the bird-filled lakes of with things; and we are of course.” This yearn- Malheur to the forests of the Klamath Mountains. ing is where he stepped into dangerous waters. Kittredge’s most famous work about that time, his In trying to understand his ancestors, “trying memoir Hole in the Sky, is the work of someone to loop myself into lines of significance,” as he deeply in love with stories — preoccupied with called it, Kittredge often skipped over the other the way they can bring a place and its people to life. people he shared the world with, particularly the Kittredge mourned the way his father and Paiute and Bannock nations violently removed grandfather had discarded the stories of how from and kept off the land his community they came to be in southeastern Oregon, the farmed. He noted the women of his family, but deaths, losses, joys of their lives. “In a family as in his writing they still remain at a distance, as unchurched as ours there was only one sacred do the laborers and farmhands with whom he story, and that was the one we told ourselves every shared space, but not class, racial or ethnic ties. day, the one about work and property and owner- His stories, fully realized and painful, still flirt ship, which is sad,” he wrote. “We had lost track with the perils of myth, a form he alternately of stories like the one which tells us the world is dismissed and embraced. Mythical stories make to be cherished as if it exists inside our own skin.” things less real, less bloody, less painful or known. Kittredge used the stories of his family and his “There are a lot of people with stories that can ranching community to tie himself to the places be told,” Chris La Tray, a Métis writer and story- THERE’S ONE PASSAGE in William he lived, to document his responsibilities to teller from Missoula and an enrolled member of Kittredge’s The Next Rodeo that has sneaked into them. He traced the way his community’s farm- the Little Shell Nation, told me recently. Stories my brain and my way of thinking. It’s from the ing practices and lifestyle decimated the rich of settlement like Kittredge’s so often cover up essay “Home”: “Looking backward is one of our bird life of the area; the lakes of southern Oregon the truth about where La Tray’s people lived and main hobbies here in the American West, as we are major waypoints for migrating birds. He came from. Their stories rarely get the same airing age. And we are aging, which could mean grow- scorned glowy and aspirational tales about the as those of Kittredge and his lineage, La Tray said: ing up. Or not. It’s a difficult process for a culture brutal colonization and settlement of the area he “The storytellers are there and they’ve been there.” that has always been so insistently boyish.” grew up in, the boyish myths of white settlement At his best, though, Kittredge looked into When Kittredge died, I went back and reread that made heroes out of ordinary people. the lives of those around him and respected The Next Rodeo, his last book of essays. Once Still, he was just one voice in what should be them for what they were: He sought the human again that passage struck me with the same note a chorus describing the places Westerners live stories beneath the wide-open sky that invites of caution it has before: Aging is unavoidable. in and come from. I was reminded of this when such sweeping myths. There’s a balance to strike Growing up, though, takes work. Through his I called him during the 2016 Malheur occupa- between mythologizing the past and dismiss- writing, Kittredge offered a path for doing this: tion, when armed “Sagebrush Rebels” invaded ing older ways. Kittredge’s detailed view of the He waded through his own ancestors’ complex Oregon’s Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The extrem- places he lived is one to hold on to, and some- relationships with the land. Through writing ists threatened federal agents in a standoff that thing to seek out in the storytellers who never rooted in place — and in a detailed understand- lasted nearly two weeks, and they dug up archae- attained his stature. The universal is made up ing of human nature — Kittredge modeled a way ological remains around the refuge’s headquar- of the small and particular, and there’s plenty to tell more clear-eyed stories about the West. ters, which includes tribal lands not ceded of room for more. William Kittredge died on Dec. 4, 2020, at 88. under ratified treaties. A bit perplexed by my Here’s how Kittredge imagined his own death He was a giant of the literary world of Montana, questions about the occupiers, Kittredge eventu- in Hole in the Sky: “I am most concerned to exam- “the king of the Missoula literati,” as one writer ally demurred: Others understood the occupiers ine the possibility that I may come to die and called him. He taught at the University of better. What he knew was already in his books. It feel myself slipping back into everything. I hope Montana for three decades and was a beloved was my job, and that of other Westerners, to make I may feel that such slipping back into things is teacher to many. He told his students not to sense of things for ourselves. It wasn’t his, not proper while it is happening.” Like growing up, write like anyone else: “Find your obsessions anymore, and certainly not his alone. a peaceful death is a proper thing. For those he and follow them,” he said in a 1997 interview To Western writers, Kittredge posed this ques- left behind, there’s plenty of work left to do. with Cutbank, as he was retiring. tion: What if, instead of mythology, we wrote Kittredge also edited an anthology, The Last stories? Writers such as Kittredge, Raymond Kate Schimel is managing editor of Searchlight Best Place, with his wife, Annick Smith, giving Carver and Indigenous author James Welch, New Mexico, and a writer based in Santa Fe, New it the name that is now a stand-in for Montana. among others, embraced the small confines of Mexico. That book — a touchstone for Montana literature people’s lives, the messy ways in which we move — argued that this community of writers did not through the world. Of course, Kittredge’s stories, need the blessing of the coasts to have worth. like all stories, had limits defined by his own Lake Abert in Warner Valley, Lake County, Oregon But his obsession was southeastern Oregon. perspective. And while Kittredge saw the need for (opposite). David Hanson Kittredge was raised in and around the Warner many storytellers, he was part of a literary commu- William Kittredge, photographed in 2001 (above). Valley, in Lake County, Oregon, butt-up against nity that elevated the stories of white Western men. Sophie Bassouls/Sygma via Getty Images

FEBRUARY 2021 43 REVIEW writing about the Donner Party, the reunion of the 101st Airborne Asso- storied band of would-be Califor- ciation in Las Vegas to meditate on nia pioneers who resorted to canni- the cost of the nation’s endless wars. balism in the snows of the Sierra Taken on their own, these essays Nevada. Accusing Didion of white- do little to reconcile Als’ image of washing history, Gurba restores to Didion as a woke cosmopolitan with the narrative the stories of Anto- Gurba’s portrait of a racist region- nio, a Mexican, and two Miwok alist. The book’s most significant Indians, Lewis and Salvador, who lessons about Didion’s relationship Finding meaning on travelled with the Donners but are to the West arrive more subtly. never mentioned in any of Didion’s One such lesson comes in “Why Joan Didion’s frontier writings. Lewis and Salvador were I Write,” a 1975 meditation on craft. hunted down and shot by the white Here, Didion wrestles with her With the release of a new collection, the 86-year-old author settlers for food; Antonio was canni- own tendency to play both the role returns to her old work and a vast, complicated legacy. balized after dying of exposure. of detached observer and that of In her conclusion, Gurba writes committed social commentator. BY ALEX TRIMBLE YOUNG that “Didion inherited a wagon-trail It opens with a declaration of the morality from her ancestors. From insidious nature of writing’s persua- my queer Brown ancestors I inher- sive force. “There’s no getting ited a different kind of morality, one around the fact that setting words “CALIFORNIA BELONGS TO is wary of literary marketing gone that drives me to write for Lewis, on paper is the tactic of a secret JOAN DIDION,” the book critic awry: In one of the essays, “Last Salvador, Antonio, and Jeanne bully, an invasion, an imposition,” Michiko Kakutani declared in The Words,” she reflects on the decision (Córdova)” — a queer Chicana she writes. Didion meditates on her New York Times in 1979. Born in of Ernest Hemingway’s fourth wife activist who worked for a time as failure as a young writer “to forge for Sacramento to a family that proudly to violate her husband’s wishes by Didion’s nanny. “In this moment, (herself) a mind that could deal in traced its heritage to 19th century posthumously publishing much of California belongs to them. This the abstract,” acknowledging that settlers, Didion has become insep- his uncollected and unfinished work. sentence is their title, their deed.” her “attention veered inexorably arable from California and the West. “What followed was the systematic Gurba confronts Didion’s image back to the specific, to the tangible.” Plenty of readers continue to take creation of a marketable product,” from the other side of a literary These sentences echo “On Moral- Kakutani’s claim at face value, even Didion writes — his name was ulti- frontier, highlighting the voices of ity,” an essay she wrote a decade though Didion has resided in New mately licensed to Thomasville those who defined California before earlier in a Death Valley motel room York City for decades. Didion’s Furniture Industries for the “Ernest the arrival of Didion’s ancestors while trying to ward off the apoca- novels and nonfiction, and her Hemingway Collection.” Didion’s and before American statehood. A lyptic desert heat. “With the help chic brand of California cool, are horror at seeing one of her liter- different image is painted by The of the ice cubes I have been trying still lauded as an alternative to the ary heroes reduced to a marketing New Yorker critic Hilton Als in his to think … in some abstract way masculine myth of the frontier. slogan for a middlebrow furniture introduction to Let Me Tell You What about ‘morality,’ ” she writes, “but Didion, who is 86, hasn’t line hints at the motivation behind I Mean. Als’ Didion is the late-career my mind veers inflexibly toward published a book of new work in her own publication. Let Me Tell author who examines “the racial bias the particular.” In a meditation on nearly a decade. Her latest, Let You What I Mean does not peddle and the Central Park Five” in The the Western landscape, frontier Me Tell You What I Mean, is a slim the false promise of a glimpse at New York Review of Books, “Reagan- history and the social unrest of the volume of previously uncollected the woman behind the authorial era El Salvador” in her third novel, summer of 1965, Didion traces this essays that contains just a smatter- persona. Instead, it allows Didion to and “the smug, violent, white male insistence on the particular to the ing of reflections on California and achieve what Hemingway could not: carelessness” of a Southern Califor- “wagon-train morality” of the fron- the West. Most of the pieces, which a collection of B-sides that enriches, nia high school gang, known as the tier. Against the “insidious ethic of range from a begrudgingly admir- rather than undercuts, her carefully “Spur Posse,” in her 2003 memoir conscience,” Didion embraces this ing feature on Martha Stewart to constructed literary brand. Where I Was From. This Didion is not morality “that has as its point only a self-effacing reflection on being This is a timely maneuver, only presciently attuned to issues of survival, not the attainment of the rejected from Stanford, will be as a new generation of readers social justice; she is someone whose ideal good.” The celebrated cool- familiar to any Didion fan with an approaches Didion’s work with a identity as a Californian is merely ness of Didion’s style, the detach- internet connection. The collection more critical eye. In a May 2020 incidental to her brilliance: “Could ment from fashionable moral nonetheless offers an important piece in Electric Literature enti- be California, could be anywhere.” imperatives that enabled her inci- opportunity to revisit the question tled “It’s Time to Take California Indeed, in Let Me Tell You What sive perspective on both hippies of Didion’s fraught connection to Back from Joan Didion,” Chicana I Mean, the West takes center stage and Reaganites, is inherited, in her place, one that has always been author Myriam Gurba calls for a only briefly. “A Trip to Xanadu” telling, from the pragmatism of her more complicated than Kakutani’s “rebellion against Didion’s racial offers an incisive appraisal of the pioneer ancestors. declaration suggests. grammar” that could “unseat her aesthetics of San Simeon, the Such pragmatism is easier to As its title implies, Let Me Tell as California’s thin-lipped literary monstrous California castle built by celebrate when one forgets that You What I Mean is part of Didion’s grand dame.” Gurba critiques Didi- William Randolph Hearst; “Fathers, some of the prominent “moral effort to define her own legacy. She on’s early work, focusing on her Sons, Screaming Eagles” uses a imperatives” in early 1965 were

44 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS that I can only to this day confront them obliquely.” Here she draws connections that are anything but accidental — tying her ancestors’ violent encounters with Indigenous people to the crimes of the late 20th century “Spur Posse” that Hilton Als mentions. The book’s title expresses, on the one hand, doubt over the very possibility of regional belonging. On the other, to borrow Didion’s words, it implies that “we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.” Let Me Tell You What I Mean reminds Didion’s readers that the most enduring theme of her work is an endlessly recursive self-scrutiny, a movement from the abstractions “floating in the distance” of her mind to the disillusions of the particular. This is an important lesson for anyone who finds her work either an inspiring or odious model for nego- tiating one’s place in the American West. Her genius emerges neither from a detached pragmatism nor an unacknowledged idealism, but from the ongoing tension between the two. “Didion’s California” will always be a storied place in the process of disenchantment. At the conclusion of her essay on San Simeon in Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Didion remembers her own childhood fascination with the then-private Hearst castle. She reflects on what has been lost — what fantasies have been dispelled — by taking her young niece on a tour of the grounds with her. “She liked the flowers and the pools and the ornate ceilings, but it occurred to me as we left that she would have found it more affecting had Photo illustration: Julia Lubas / HCN conclude that it “had been above all of her legacy demands that we echo she only glimpsed it from Highway Portrait: Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty a history of accidents — of moving Gurba’s questions about the writ- 1, the gates barred, the castle float- on and accidents.” One can hardly er’s relationship to the violence of ing in the distance,” Didion writes. those that led Dr. Martin Luther imagine Indigenous or Mexican settlement. But it’s just as import- “Make a place available to the eyes, King Jr. from Selma to Montgom- Californians describing the history ant to acknowledge that Didion has and in certain ways it is no longer ery. “On Morality,” like so much of of Anglo settlement of the state in posed these questions herself. available to the imagination.” Didion’s early writing, elides the those terms. Beneficiaries of that In Where I Was From, Didion contemporary and historical racial history like Didion, on the other interrogates her own “confusions violence that Gurba uncovers. In hand, have far more motivation to about the place in which I grew up, her debut novel Run River (1963), explain its violence as incidental. confusions as much about Amer- Let Me Tell You What I Mean Didion’s semi-autobiographical If this “wagon-train morality” ica as about California, misappre- Joan Didion protagonist Lily Knight ponders shaped Didion’s approach to her hensions and misunderstandings 192 pages, hardcover: $23 her family’s frontier story only to craft, then an honest assessment so much a part of who I became Knopf, 2021.

FEBRUARY 2021 45 Heard Around the West Tips about Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write [email protected].

BY BETSY MARSTON

WYOMING and hang out with whatever felines, Yellowstone National Park’s usually three or four of them, are neon-colored hot springs belch up currently on duty. All of the cats are bubbles that delight the tourists, adoptable through the Heart of the but the resident volcanic microbes Valley Animal Shelter, reports KBZK. have proven equally important to “We’re just really crazy cat people … entrepreneurs. A Chicago-based and we really just wanted to offer an company called Nature’s Fynd extra outlet for people to be able to has invested $45 million in those spend time and adopt cats,” Pecu- microbes to grow a “meatless meat,” konis said. The Cat Café is currently reports VegNews. The company focusing on older cats, which are feeds its microorganisms glycerin experienced enough to hide from and starches, then ferments them potential owners, reports the “Town to produce a complete protein it Crier” briefs in Explore Big Sky. calls “Fy,” which contains “all nine amino acids and (is also) high in COLORADO fiber and vitamins.” Nature’s Fynd A fond farewell is overdue for a plans to have vegetarian hot dogs, gallant woman named Henrietta nuggets and hamburgers in stores Hay, who died last year in Grand as early as 2021. Junction at the fabulous age of 106. Yellowstone’s superheated Hay was always a maverick, a liberal pools have already contributed in a conservative western Colo- to humanity’s welfare, reports Armando Veve / HCN rado town who rode a motorcycle National Geographic. Back in the into her 60s, worked as a librarian 1960s, microbiologist Thomas Brock add up to so much. “I was free to do to reduce stress in humans by releas- for a quarter-century and wrote was visiting the park when he real- what is called basic research,” he ing the bonding hormone oxytocin.” a column for the Grand Junction ized that a bizarre gelatinous mass said. “Some people called it useless One farmer told the BBC that inter- Daily Sentinel for 22 years. One floating in Little Octopus Spring because it was not focused on practi- acting with cows is pretty basic: “You of her most provocative columns was “definitely living” despite the cal ends.” But serendipity ultimately come to the fields and we have some was reprinted by the Denver Post water’s forbidding temperature of triumphed: “The find has made a special hugging cows and you can in 2002. In “What is a liberal?” Hay 190 degrees Fahrenheit. A year later, world of difference.” lay next to (them). People think it’s declared that she was tired of hear- he and his graduate student Hudson relaxing” — though so far no one ing people use the word “liberal” as Freeze discovered that a gooey mass THE WEST has asked the cows for their opinion. an obscenity. “Liberals are not crim- in Mushroom Spring contained Fox News recently reported on a Therapeutic cow snuggling appar- inals, she wrote. “They are not trai- a microbe that produces weird surprising condition shared by some ently got started in the Netherlands tors. … Most of them probably have heat-resistant enzymes. Their find young people. Let’s call it “bovine more than a decade ago. cats. Most of them are Christians. revolutionized molecular biology: deficit disorder.” A study of 3,500 Most of them are Democrats. Some The heat-tolerant enzymes enabled Americans between the ages of 11 MONTANA are Republicans. Most of them scientists to automate the copying of and 24, conducted by the RV travel In Bozeman, there’s a far easier way say, ‘You believe your thing and DNA and RNA, making testing fast, site Parked in Paradise, found that to commune with mammals that let me believe mine.’ Liberal,” she easy and routine. The enzymes are 33% — “a shocking number” — are much fluffier and considerably concluded, is “not a dirty word. It is the key component of PCR — poly- claimed to have never seen a cow “in more portable than cows: You can a proud word.” And, quoting Mark merase chain reaction — which is person.” If these udderly deprived pet the purring kitties at Montana’s Twain, she added, “The radical of “now being used to boost the signal of youngsters ever do encounter a first Cat Café. Started by Josh Marks one century is the conservative of viruses in most of the available tests 1,000-pound cow, they might bene- and Josh Pecukonis, the cat lounge is the next. The radical invents the for COVID-19.” Brock never imag- fit from a new wellness trend: cow located above the Foxtrot restaurant. views. When he has worn them out ined that his investigations would hugging. “Cuddling cows is thought Patrons can take their food upstairs the conservative adopts them.”

46 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS JANUARY 2020 47 119 Grand Avenue PO Box 1090 Paonia, CO 81428

U.S. $5 | Canada $6

#IAM THE WEST MARY BARCLAY Retired coal miner, rancher Paonia, Colorado

I chose mining because it was the best job in the area, and I figured I was tough enough to do it. I could handle a horse, so I could handle a truck. But it was a lot harder than that. Going into the mines is like going to the front lines. It’s a battle with yourself to overcome fear. You know you might not come out, every day. You go down underneath, and you don’t know if it will collapse on top of you. You learn to appreciate the smallest things, sunsets and aspen trees, because you’re in the dark all day. When you see the sunset coming out of the mine, it’s the most beautiful because it’s the simplest thing.

Do you know a Westerner with a great story? Abby Harrison / HCN Abby Let us know on social.