New West Book Review
Rigged: Alexandra Fuller’s “The Legend of Colton H. Bryant”
The Legend of Colton H. Bryant
By Alexandra Fuller
The Penguin Press
202 pages, $23.95
In her extraordinary new book, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, Alexandra Fuller does a cruel thing. She makes readers fall in love with a Wyoming boy in the space of a few pages, carries us through his life, which leads inevitably to a dangerous job on an oil rig, and makes us stand as witnesses to his end, however much we wish we could turn our heads away. I still feel heartsick a few weeks after finishing it. Fuller writes with simple grace and a cowboy twang, taking a rather unconventional approach for nonfiction by composing the book of the private conversations and intimate scenes that are the turning points of Bryant's short life, and though she must have spent months with his family and friends, the author stays offstage, disappearing into a bracing, honest voice that is motherly in its tenderness toward her subject.
Fuller will discuss her book at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) in Denver on Monday, May 12 (7:30 p.m.), at Borders in Portland on May 13 (7 p.m.), and in Evanston, WY at the Uinta Library on May 16 (5 p.m.)
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"The Gulch" Jackson, Wyoming. Photo by Gil Brady.
LET'S GET OUR WORDS STRAIGHT
Wilderness is Multiple Use
Have you ever heard somebody say they prefer "multiple use" over Wilderness? I have what seems like a thousand times, and every time I hear it, I say to myself, wrong!
So, it seems like a good time to say it out loud because the words, "multiple use" have been lost in the Wilderness.
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Western Book Roundup
Lynn Rossetto Kasper Visits Boulder & Desert Writing Award Announced
The Boulder Farmer's Market will open for its first Wednesday afternoon of the season today, kicking off with a book signing and talk by Lynn Rossetto Kasper, host of NPR's The Splendid Table. She'll be discussing her new book, How to Eat Supper. (Free, 5:30-6:30 p.m.)
The Bluff, Utah-based Ellen Meloy Fund for Desert Writers announced that this year's winner of their annual award is Joe Wilkins. Wilkins plans to study and write about the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains from Texas to Montana.
Also in the Roundup: Margot Kahn tours behind Horses That Buck: The Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith, and WyoFile.com excerpts Alexandra Fuller's new book.
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CLASS ACTION SUITS TO BE FILED TUESDAY IN ARIZONA, COLORADO
Public Land Owners Taking RAT, Forest Service to Civil Court
Enough is enough, say the owners of our national forests. And they may have finally found a way to spike the Recreation Access Tax or RAT.
After years of working through cumbersome administrative channels and several rounds in criminal court, people interested in reasonable and free access to their public land have dragged the Forest Service (FS) into civil court. In addition to asking for injunctions against collecting "illegal" fees while the case is being litigated and if successful the fee program terminated, the plaintiffs in the class action complaints--to be filed tomorrow morning in Arizona and Colorado--want all fee collection signs removed and all fees collected through the years under the program returned to the people who shouldn't have had to pay them.
Suffice to say, it's panic time in the FS offices back in Washington, D.C.
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2008 COMMENTS WORTH REPEATING III
The Wilderness Drought and How the Green Group Feud Keeps it Alive
Over the past two years, I've been periodically posting selections of my favorite comments from readers of my columns and articles. I plan to continue doing this, but differently. Instead of listing comments chronologically, I've edited them into general subject areas. In this case, here are a few insightful comments that came in over the past few months on several articles on the wilderness drought and the green group feud that keeps it alive and if not endless. Enjoy.
Editor's Note: For a complete list of Comments Worth Repeating, click here.
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COMMENTARY
On Energy Development, Hunters and Anglers Push Back
Eight months ago, President Bush signed an executive order directing federal agencies to do everything necessary to "facilitate the expansion and enhancement of hunting opportunities and the management of game species and their habitat."
The president gave those agencies--specifically the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (FS)--a year to come up with a plan to implement this order, which was, conceptually anyway, drafted to combat news that participation in hunting was waning in the United States.
About the same time, the BLM announced plans to lease the Roan Plateau in Colorado for natural gas development. Plans were also announced to lease nearly 45,000 acres of land in the Hoback River drainage of western Wyoming, and the West was--and still is--in the throes of a full-on energy boom. Sportsmen--the very people who stood to benefit from Executive Order 13443--were deeply involved in important campaigns to protect a number of special places throughout the West from irresponsible oil and gas drilling that would not only trash important fish and game habitat, but significantly reduce hunting and fishing opportunity.
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New West News Brief
Statewide Wyoming Real Estate Steady, Slight Chill in Teton ValleyThe Associated Press' Mead Gruver takes a look at the Wyoming real estate market today with two stories: One about a slight cool down in the pricey Jackson Hole area and another about the still slightly tight overall statewide situation.
New Census numbers show Wyoming is ninth in the nation for the lowest vacancy rate in the first quarter (1.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent West-wide), tied with Hawaii and Oklahoma. New energy workers moving into the state have helped the market, as has the reluctance to go hog-wild with new construction.
In the Teton Valley, Gruver reports there is a little dip in home sales, although the median price continues to climb. (It's at $1.1 milllion.) And, with a proposed moratorium on new building while the county finishes a management plan, those prices might just continue their rise.
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New West News Brief
Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Halted, Meat Distributed to Food Banks
With more than half of the Yellowstone National Park bison population removed this season due to slaughter, winter weather and hunting, the Interagency Bison Management has halted all additional deaths and are holding 255 cows and calves until the grass greens.
Meanwhile, an estimated 600,000 pounds of meat from the slaughtered 1,700 bison is currently being distributed to Montana tribes and food banks, reports the Billings Gazette. An additional 700 are estimated dead due to weather.
The Montana Food Bank network recently purchased 15,000 pounds of bison meat that will be distributed to 189 banks throughout the state, perfect timing with the February recall of 143 million pounds of Californian beef.
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12 Groups file on first day allowed
Environmental Groups Sue to Reverse Wolf Delisting
As expected, a coalition of 12 environmental and animal-rights groups filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. seeking to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The lawsuit seeks a immediate injunction to protect gray wolves from public hunting and aims to return the wolf to federal management under the Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves were officially delisted on March 28th.
“We’re trying to prevent the wolf slaughter from going forward,” said Doug Honnold, managing attorney of the Bozeman office of Earthjustice, the legal organization representing the coalition.
The groups argue state management plans fail to provide adequate protection for the species, especially against indiscriminate public hunting. Instead of protection, state management actually promotes the killing of wolves, Honnold said.
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NewWest.Net Conferences
Designing the New West
The Designing the New West: Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West Conference is wrapping up here in Bozeman at the historic Gallatin Gateway Inn. Put on by NewWest.Net and sponsored by the Sonoran Institute, the conference brought together designers from all over the country to explore innovative design ideas, identify best practices, and better understand how to bridge the gap between good architectural theory and sometimes-messy building practices in the fastest growing region in the nation.
A mix of presentations and engaging panel discussions tackled pressing Western issues like sustainable development, land design and the special challenges of urban, rural and resort design, historic preservation and affordable housing.
Click on the photo or here for a slideshow of the days' events. Click "more" for a recap of the conference.
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