My wife Ramona and I just returned from a mini-vacation on a ranch in the foothills of the Beartooth Range. It reminded us of the remarkably hard work accomplished by the homesteaders, of their poverty, and today’s easy living. Consider our history and try to imagine how pleased and excited we were when several of […]
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BOZEMAN, Mont.–At the beginning of a century, it’s tempting to assess one’s place in the era just passed. For me and most Americans the evaluation is clear, compelling and unambiguous: We hold a winning lottery ticket. America is not utopia. No place ever is. However, we are fortunate to live in the most successful large […]
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Each year the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado grants the Wallace Stegner Award to a writer who has contributed to “the cultural identity of the American West”. Stegner would no doubt be pleased by this year’s recipient, Paul Schullery, a long term Park Service contractor and defender, and husband of […]
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The Christmas decorations adorning our streets and shops give multiple messages. All are intended to be cheerful but they cause some minor anguish by reminding us of the necessity of gifts. We all have friends and relatives for whom it’s hard to buy. What can I get someone who has everything or the ability to […]
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The West has long considered natural resource industries – logging, mining, and ranching – as economic keystones. Westerners have relied upon the federal “landlord” for substantial economic benefits. The world’s largest system of water diversions and network of forest access roads (eight times the mileage of the U.S. interstate highway system) testify to their success. […]
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“The data is overwhelming,” said University of Montana professor Paul Polzin. “There is no correlation between growth and amenities.” Economist Myles Watts of Montana State University laments that mining, factory, and timber jobs are “the sort of jobs that will lift the standard of living for a county or even an entire state.” These comments […]
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Island Press, June, 1997, John A. Baden, contributing author and editor (with Donald Snow). Contact FREE to purchase.
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By my count, my wife Ramona and I represent nine generations in American agriculture. With her competence and cheer, we ran 500 ewes and wintered horses on our home place in Montana’s Gallatin Valley. After a time we sold the sheep, and for several years I taught in the University of Washington’s business school where […]
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Here is my gift to you for this Christmas season and the ones to follow. If you have friends and relatives for whom it’s hard to buy holiday gifts, you’ll find economic thinking helpful indeed. But you may wonder how economists, followers of the “dismal science,” can contribute to the holiday season? Surely not by […]
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In Idaho, state wildlife biologists are doing something they never learned in college—teaching trout how to eat native foods. It seems that the hatchery-raised fish, fed a diet of protein pellets instead of stoneflies, have developed rather discriminating palates. They react to worms and other traditional fare the way most five-year-olds do to broccoli. This […]
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