There’s little doubt that we live today in interesting times. In recent months, Americans have been confronted with deep, seemingly insurmountable problems. Divisions among neighbors and families. The pain of economic loss and the specter of illness and death. We’ve…
My great grandparents, John and Louisa Wetherill, left a legacy that includes thousands of historic photographs they collected down through the years and preserved to pass on to future generations. These images, along with textual records, have been invaluable in…
I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if…
The following excerpt is from the book: CANYON COUNTRY EXPLORATIONS & RIVER LORE: The Remarkable Resilient Life of Kenny Ross, by Gene M. Stevenson. The book was written about Kenny Ross, one of the forgotten personalities on the Colorado Plateau…
As we limp and struggle into the second half of this “unprecedented, difficult, perilous, challenging, dangerous” Year 2020, I was reminded of a short essay I penned almost 15 years ago. It’s as if we’ve been in training for 2020 all…
My first controversy on the paper was one I didn’t seek and didn’t want, especially so early in my tenure; I had only been reporting for a couple of months. The issue involved the Friendship Cruise between Green River and…
My favorite kind of road trip usually devolves into a series of decisions about what direction I’m going to take that day. I wake up and check the weather to see if there is anything I need to avoid. I…
My dad was a birder. I always thought he looked silly, dressed up in his “bird outfit” and binoculars. And so I resisted the temptation, when I was a boy, to learn more about our feathered friends (Youthful rebellion at…
The concept of “place attachment” has come up in this column before, but I’ve never really shared much about my own connection to canyon country or to southeast Utah in particular. My people on my dad’s side came to San…
If you were to meet Bud Frazier for the first time, he would introduce himself by saying, “Yá’át’ééh shí éí Bud yíníshyé’. Tł’ízí łání nishłį́. Hooghan łání báshíshchíín. Hi, my Navajo clan is Many Goats born for Many Hogans.” Bud…
So I get this email from Stiles telling me that he thinks it’s a good idea that my next dispatch should be about, “how you ‘two kids’ met”. I swear I’m not making this up. He evidently forgot that the…
The Pandemic is giving us a Golden Opportunity to Save the World from our Sheared Selves… The once, current, and seemingly never-ending worldwide Coronavirus pandemic has brought suffering and discomfort to millions. In degrees of pain and agony— COVID-19 has…
Here at the Zephyr, we’re pretty proud of the articles we publish each issue. We’ve said this before, but we think we’ve assembled the best collection of writers we’ve ever had, all of whom are writing at a level that…
In the months after Herb Ringer’s 1941 move to Reno from New Jersey, he set out to explore the barren deserts nearby. Even before the war, much of the American West was relatively empty, and towns in the Great Basin…
August 21st, 1941Mr Hugh M Miller, SuperintendentSouthwestern National MonumentsCoolidge, Arizona Dear Hugh: It’s about that time of the month again to compile my notes into the regular monthly report and I think I will try to catch time for a…
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In This Issue: Take it or Leave it: RANDOM THOUGHTS & FRUSTRATIONS (RIGHT OR WRONG) ABOUT OUR CURRENT “NEW REALITY” …by Jim Stiles Covid 19 on the Prairie: Life in the Urban/Rural Divide …by Tonya Audyn Stiles CRITTER PATROL: LIONS…
NOTE: After 2 1/2 months of this, I’d almost rather eat Brussel Sprouts than write about COVID-19. Like many of you, I am conflicted and tired and frustrated and scared and angry. Sometimes I even think that God is just…
It’s a peculiar time to live in a tiny, isolated town on the prairie. Peculiar, firstly, because the town looks largely the same, despite the international pandemic that occupies every headline and every conversation. The roads are quiet, yes. But…
“I am not a naturalist. I never was and never will be a naturalist. I’m not even sure what a naturalist is except that I am not one…The only birds I can recognize without hesitation are the turkey vulture, the…
We took mules, all of us, as we expected the very roughest kind of trailless work; and we got it…. Wetherill said, while we were in an oak thicket on a very sharp slope at the foot of a canyon,…