(Note: this article first appeared in the June/July 2005 Zephyr) They’re still doing it, enviro outfits consulting consultants. The latest attack of this ailment is described in a column by Amanda G. Little. (1) A year ago about 20 “national”…
It’s been well past a year—January 28, 2012—since my dear friend and mentor and kindred spirit, Martin Murie passed away. For almost a quarter century, I often turned to him for support and advice and understanding the way a son…
THEME PARKS John Colter, 1807-08 They kept track of him that winter west of the Absarokas, by day brilliant ravens avid over snow, wolves and coyotes hung around refining careful judgements, the man recognized: one of them, killers and scavengers…
This article was originally published in 2004… When Aldo Leopold saw fierce green fire in the eyes of the dying wolf his life was changing; years of living in wolf country were driving those moments, years of paying attention,…
A July day in Horse Canyon, northern Nevada. Cheatgrass was abundant, especially along the cattle trail. Barbed “florets” snagged my sneakers and socks and worked into the fabrics and stabbed. Dozens of them, and they were hard to dislodge. Lacking…
Yesterday I happened to be looking through the open back doorway of the cabin. A housefly’s flight came to an abrupt stop and there came the barn spider on its invisible line. Reaching the fly, the spider wrapped it…
Visions… Once in a while something very like a vision comes along. Those, as we all know, are not scheduled in advance. They happen in subways, tangled woods, high plains, classrooms, prisons, battlefields. There are many recipes, special behaviors,…
Last summer Jim Stiles and Bob Greenspan and I met in Jackson, Wyoming. Bob and I favored crossing the street to a cafe for coffee, but Jim led us to a shady outside bench and we sat there quite a…
It was deathly hot, 104 degrees, the day the four of us (Norah, Rose, Olivia and I) arrived at Delicate Arch trailhead to join other parties clustered at their vehicles, gathering cameras and stowing bottles of water, food, who knows,…
Our friend martin Murie left us in January, but with the permission and blessings of his family, we would like to re-print some of his best essays from the past decade. Here is one of Martin’s first contributions, a…