New West Book Review
From Missouri to Montana, On Foot
Seldom Seen: A Journey into the Great Plains
By Patrick Dobson
University of Nebraska Press, 296 pages, $29.95
In Seldom Seen, author Patrick Dobson embraces Walt Whitman’s charge to “take to the open road.” He leaves behind a mind-dulling job in Kansas City, Missouri and sets out on foot for Helena, Montana, carrying only a backpack and possessing the resolve of a person who’s just made an abrupt about-face.
When this story begins in the summer of 1995, Dobson needs a change. He’s doing odd jobs for a hotel, sometimes repainting the same concrete floors month after month. But he has a vague sense that there’s something else out there for him, or at least something more to life than the one he’s been living. Dobson spends a year saving money for his epic adventure, and then he finally walks out his front door with sturdy boots on his feet and an overstuffed pack on his back.
NOT THE "CHANGE" WE EXPECTED
Obama Retains Bush Legal Defense of Public Land Recreation Fees
“Change We Need.” You remember it, right? Heard it at least a thousand times, correct?
But based on recent events, Barack Obama’s campaign slogan should’ve been “No Change Needed” because public land users have all been short-changed again by the Forest Service (FS) with full support of the new administration.
Critics of the Federal Land Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) or Recreation Access Tax (RAT), as we call it, have been quick to blame it on the evil, pro-privatization, environmental unfriendly Bushies, so I guess it’s a real shock to us to see the Obama administration making no change at all in the defense of the aggressive implementation of maligned law.
NO TIME FOR MORE ECONOMIC STRESS
Idaho Delegation Fights Forest Service for Seniors, Disabled
UPDATED,, March 17:
As reported here on NewWest.Net on January 28, the Forest Service (FS) has decided to take back discounts promised to elderly and disabled public land users.
To that, all four members of the Idaho Congressional delegation say, whoa, partner, not so fast on that one.
Western Book Roundup
Wyoming Writers Roll On & Western Heritage Awards Announced
And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for: two weeks ago I asked New West readers to vote on what book I should review next. I was delighted and relieved when several people voted. The winner, with four votes, is Staking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West by Marcia Meredith Hensley. I’ll review it next Monday. And since the voting was so tight, I plan to review the runner-up, How it Looks Going Back by Doris Knowles Pulis, in a few weeks as well.
As for the other two books: they’ll go back on my guilt pile, and I’ll get to them as soon as I can. Every time I open the cabinet where I keep my un-reviewed books, the books scream, “Pick me! Pick me!” I’m okay with it, but it frightens the kids.
• Wyofile has an in-depth feature by Susan Gray Gose on Wyoming mystery and thriller novelist C.J. Box. Gray Gose writes that Box “cranks out 1,000 words a day,” “publishes two books a year,” and that one of his novels could be adapted into a screenplay soon:
“The producers of About Schmidt (the 2002 New Line Cinema comedy) bought the rights to Blue Heaven. While many optioned books languish, this one seems to be moving forward. It’s received financing, and actors Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin and Joe Pesci have signed on.”
GUEST COMMENTARY
Reallocate Colorado OHV Funds
I grew up hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, trapping and canoeing amidst America’s national forests and other public lands, spending as much time as possible in the outdoors, and I’m an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) user. I use ATVs while hunting each fall and understand the attraction of these motorized vehicles.
However, hunters and many others know that experiencing the outdoors should not be a mechanized, sedentary activity. In my opinion, ATV use for hunters (and others) should be a practical aid in moving gear, setting up camps, and getting to trailheads. Their use should not be part of the actual outdoors-hunting experience itself. Unfortunately, for many (maybe most) ATV users, this activity is no longer about experiencing the outdoors; it’s about the thrill.
New West Book Review
Mark Spragg’s “Bone Fire” Returns to Familiar Ground
Bone Fire
by Mark Spragg
Knopf, 304 pages, $25.95
Mark Spragg’s understated yet satisfying third novel, Bone Fire, takes several characters from his first two novels and binds them together in a story in which some of the people are struggling to find a way to leave the town of Ishawooa, Wyoming, while others are trying to return to it. In Bone Fire, Einar Gilkyson and Crane Carlson, two characters from Spragg’s prior novels, have moved a bit farther down the inevitable conveyor belt that is life, declining in health while Griff, the young woman they both care about, flounders as she seeks direction.
In 2004’s An Unfinished Life, Griff Gilkyson was a nine-year-old girl, named after her dead father, who found refuge from her mother’s flighty ways at her crusty paternal grandfather Einar’s Wyoming ranch. Griff’s mother, Jean, ended up marrying the town sheriff, Crane Carlson.
Mark Spragg is currently on a book tour with Laura Bell, with stops in Boulder (Boulder Book Store, March 16, 7:30 p.m.), Bozeman (Country Bookshelf, April 20, 7 p.m.), Missoula (Fact & Fiction, April 21, 7 p.m.), and many more places in Montana, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and California.
bearbait said: "And Jed is pimping for using other people's money, which is dwindling if not already gone. If I knew how to do it, I would…
Janine Blaeloch said: "Hey, Frank G., I presume that is you. As I told you in the past, you're wrong."
Tom von Alten said: "(After the capitulation update) Honoring "lifetime" commitments is a good thing, but I can't help but feel this "negotiation" does more to cement the idea…
Peter Wiechers said: "Those in favor of Forest Service fee programs must be having much different dealings with this bureaucracy than those of us here in the Kern…