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Mountain Journal
When Mountains Tower As Metaphor For Hubris
Situated as a northern geographic reach of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (a counterpoint to how the Wind River Range and Wyoming’s Red Desert stretch along the bioregion’s southern flank), the Crazy Mountains in Montana possess their own mystique. Jaggedly rugged with how they jut from the high plains...
'Wild' Horses: Are There 'Too Many' In The West?
Few topics stir more passion. In Writers on the Range, Ted Williams and Scott Beckstead debate wild horse management. EDITOR'S NOTE: Wild horses, descended from equines brought to North America by Spanish Conquistadors beginning at the tail end of the 15th century, are cornerstones of modern rural Western human culture. Transforming indigenous life, especially among plains tribes, and literally vehicles for cowboy myth and reality, horses that escaped taming by humans and inhabit public lands have given rise to an intense modern debate.
Without Public Lands, 'The West' As We Know It Today Would Not Exist
Every third week of September, National Public Lands Day arrives. A few reflections on why it matters to you. Photo above: bison in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley (photo by Jacob W. Frank/NPS). On National Public Lands Day, take a few minutes to consider this. Without federal public lands, there would...
Mountain Journal Adds Managing Editor To Expand Its Impact
Joseph T. O'Connor, multi-media veteran in covering the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, joins MoJo team as part of series of big operational moves. The board of directors and staff of Mountain Journal are pleased to announce that veteran journalist Joseph T. O’Connor will be joining the Greater Yellowstone-based, nonprofit news organization as its first-ever managing editor.
Too Close For Comfort? MoJo's Acclaimed Nature Cartoonist Returns!
Hello beloved Mountain Journal peeps. Our popular cartoonist John Potter is back and so is MoJo—now entering our fifth year!—after a brief summer sojourn. John has been away on hiatus making fine art paintings for the autumn exhibition season. But he returns here with another mirthful visual commentary about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as it relates to the wider wild West. This Potter original was created as a coloring contest.
Finding Gratitude (Amid The Welter Of Not Knowing What To Do)
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the threats to wildness? As Susan Marsh reminds, the first step toward preservation is appreciating what's in front of you. EDITOR'S NOTE: As Mountain Journal completes its fifth year of existence, we wish to remind readers of the esteemed credentials of our columnists. Susan Marsh is an award-winning essayist, poet and writer of fiction who for several decades worked as a backcountry/wilderness/policy specialist for the US Forest Service. She was based at both the Custer Gallatin in Bozeman, Montana and Bridger-Teton national forests in Jackson, Wyoming. Among differing accolades, she also received the Raynes Citizen Conservation Award from the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative.
Win Or Lose, Liz Cheney's Legacy In American History Will Be Non Sibi Sed Patriae
In this op-ed, Tom Sadler reflects on Wyoming's Republican primary and what Lincoln, Roosevelt, Ike and Reagan would make of Harriet Hageman. EDITOR'S NOTE: Nearly every issue with social consequences in our world is political and today in America, most of them are partisan. Mountain Journal is non partisan. We do not endorse parties or candidates but we are pro-democracy and, in fact, prioritized in the very first paragraph of Article One of the Constitution are freedom of speech and of the press. One important sacred role of the media is fact-checking. In the essay, below, from Mountain Journal's Washington, DC-correspondent Tom Sadler (who happens to have an extensive legislative background in the past working with Republicans on Capitol Hill), he makes the following observation that there can't be any common sense discussions about environmental and social issues without a functioning democracy. The outcome of the Liz Cheney vs. Harriet Hageman Republican primary in Wyoming has implications not only for their party and the country, but consequences for conservation that is today the foundation of what we see today in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Moreover, Cheney has a home in Wilson, Wyoming, located at the base of the Tetons in western Jackson Hole. Sadler has penned the following op-ed from his perspective as a "green sportsman Republican."
In Yellowstone, It's a Time Of High Animal Energy And Skyward Atmospherics
A tangle of two pair of velvet bull elk antlers. Meanwhile, a bull elk youngster oblivious to the destiny inherent in the first nubs of antlers that will shape the rest of his life. Nor does he realize how his antlers may make him a target for hunters when he migrates out of the park in autumn.
Once Fierce Rivals, Bradley and Racicot Meet In West's Radical Middle
Dorothy Bradley, a Montanan who narrowly lost to Marc Racicot in governor's race, has penned book of reflections on what she thinks is missing from American politics. Only hours before the polls closed in November 1992, Dorothy Bradley of Bozeman was on the cusp of making history as the first woman elected governor in Montana. But then mail-in ballots started to be counted favoring her opponent. Celebration abruptly turned from victory in sight into disappointing concession.
Where We Begin The Cycle Of Forever
Greetings from my corner of the northern prairie. It' s been a long two months of healing, and the best medicine for me was the power of the Sun Dance. I was able to participate in two ceremonies this year. Just being among my own and the sincere rites shared was healing.
How To Live And Die With A Presence Of Being
Given a terminal diagnosis and faced with a finite amount of time, a couple finds peace as they say goodbye. Columnist Timothy Tate shares their story. EDITOR'S NOTE: Timothy Tate says the names of the individuals in this story have been changed to protect their anonymity but the following column is based on real people.
Yellowstone's Famed 'Boiling River' Undergoes Dramatic Shape Shift
The "historic" floods in Yellowstone obliterated roads, disrupted our use of the park and altered Boiling River, but Nature isn't "destroyed" Over many years, generations of visitors to Yellowstone National Park have gone "soaking" in the geothermally-heated waters at "Boiling River." Long a favorite spot known to locals and park...
Under The Stars, Your Big Chance To Attend Two Wildlands Concerts Of The Summer
What if you had a coveted pair of tickets to attend the most highly-anticipated musical event of the summer in the northern Rockies—twin passes to hear a quartet of Grammy-Award winning recording artists?. For $10, you might win a $4,000 ticket package allowing you to surprise a loved one...
Marsh: With Wild Land, We Must Nurture More Than We Take
This summer, one of the most popular names in our stable of writers has a new volume of words—a book of poems assembled as a paean, of sorts, to her favorite muse, Mother Nature. Susan Marsh, the Jackson Hole-based writer of fiction and non-fiction, is also prima facie evidence...
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