SASKATCHEWAN FISHING LODGES

After visiting about a dozen fishing lodges in northern Saskatchewan, we’re starting to notice a lot of similarities, especially the fishing and environs, but we had no problem seeing how Foster Lake Lodge stands apart from the rest.

The lodge is located on Middle Foster Lake, which is just another amazingly pristine wilderness lake loaded with lake trout and northern pike, but the only lodge on this sprawling shield lake is like no other fishing camp or resort in the province.

MONTANA MICROBREW NEWS

True confession time. I’ve been remiss lately, fishing way too much and ignoring the beer beat, which means I have some catching up to do. And there has been a lot going on, such as….

DOC SHOCK

For residents of the West’s gas patch, the story is a familiar one. Gas companies roll in, wanting to drill. Homeowners find out they may own the land, but they don’t own the gas reserves underneath.

The drill rigs appear. For some, a battle ensues. Some complain of environmental problems. Some complain of health problems.

Outside the gas patch, the story of the battle between natural gas companies and residents is less well known, but a new documentary may help change that.

Santa Fe, N.M., filmmaker Debra Anderson set out to capture the stories of residents of western Colorado and New Mexico in her documentary Split Estate. The film is scheduled to run Oct. 17 and Oct. 22 on Planet Green, a Discovery Communications network.

Weekend Essay

I learned something recently about the life my dog had before he met me. Whoever lost him or left him so that he ended up at the animal shelter must have been a fly fisherman. He likely had a wonderful, proper cast and was a better fisherman than me.

It is the first real information I’ve gathered about Jimmy James, but it’s insight that also has left me sad and baffled. Fishermen, I like to think, are not the kind of folks who abandon their dogs, especially dogs like Jimmy James. And if their dogs get lost, I’d like to think fishermen would search to the far horizon to find them.

AMERICA'S HOTTEST IDEA

It’s not just melting ice at Glacier National Park. A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council calls climate change the “greatest threat” to America’s national parks.

It lists 25 parks most at risk to melting ice, drought, flooding, diminishing wildlife and other factors.

“This is not just a concern for the future,” says the report, which was produced by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization for the NRDC. “The national parks that we Americans so cherish are already being harmed by a changing climate.”

BEAVER CREEK BREWERY ROCKS

Have you ever tried to convince yourself that you had a bad idea; that wouldn’t turn out as planned; might even be dangerous; and definitely wouldn’t be fun.

That’s how Gene Colling and I were feeling as we inched into Wibaux, Montana. We were on our way to Minnesota for some muskie hunting, and I’d convinced Gene we should take the opportunity to see the only microbrewery I hadn’t visited while doing my Microbrew Montana Series last year.

He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, and I had to admit, the first impression wasn’t great. Wibaux, population 481, like thousands of small prairie towns, looks a little rough around the edges as it tries to find a way to survive.

But those concerns vanished as soon as we walked through the door of the Beaver Creek Brewery.

Guest Column

There is increasing interest in resolving multiple-use conflicts through place-based (national forest-specific) legislation. Throughout the West, divergent interests are negotiating how they would like particular forests to be managed. Many of these proposals include provisions related to wilderness designation, economic development, forest restoration and funding mechanisms, among others. But unlike more typical collaborative efforts, some groups are seeking codification of their agreements.

Numerous factors have precipitated this interest in going to Washington in search of legislation, including perceptions of agency gridlock, unresolved roadless and wilderness issues, and the disarray that now characterizes forest planning.

Nowhere is the place-based approach more apparent than in Montana. [more]

YES, NO, MAYBE

Following a review of 77 controversial Utah gas leases, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has put a halt on eight of them, deferred 52 of them and is allowing 17 of them to go forward.

The decision follows the recommendations outlined in an interagency report on the leases, which Salazar found had been rushed through by the Bush administration without adequate review.

“I think the report demonstrates that there was a headlong rush to leasing in the prior administration and it ended up taking the kind of shortcuts that we have discovered here,” Salazar told reporters on Thursday. “There were areas that should not have been leased because of the ecological values.”

LET'S GET OVER THE BIG PISTOL SYNDROME

General big game hunting seasons are opening soon, and legions of stealthy hunters will be silently stalking around grizzly country in pre-dawn darkness, but only after they’ve sprayed themselves with human scent blocker, “buck scent” or stale elk pee. As sure as the seasons will open, some of them will have a close encounter with a grizzly, often resulting in a dead bear.

Much has been written about this subject. Every wildlife expert out there has encouraged hunters to carry bear pepper spray instead of a big handgun for self-defense, but clearly, a lot of hunters ignore this advice, even though it’s all for their own safety and the future of hunting.

HOME OFF THE RANGE

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is proposing to move wild horses – for many an iconic image of the wildness of the West – to controlled preserves in the East or Midwest. The plan is intended to tackle the growing environmental problems associated with wild horses and burros as their populations swell on what are often marginal desert landscapes.

“It’s both a humane solution and a fiscally-responsible solution,” said Bob Abbey, director of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management which runs the wild horse program, on Wednesday.

Salazar is asking Congress to create two new preserves to maintain herds of nonproductive horses and burros that are rounded up on public lands each year but are not adopted.