Home - High Country News
Get our newsletters Most Popular Stories High Country News Classifieds Receive 2 free issues of HCN
The Gadsden flag is a symbol. But whose? - High Country News
May 18, 2020 · Historians point to Christopher Gadsden — a slave-owning South Carolinian — as the namesake for the iconic yellow flag. Gadsden, a colonel in the Continental Army, is believed to have gifted ...
Diverted, drained and dwindling: What’s the fate of New Mexico’s …
Jan 14, 2021 · In Las Cruces, the Rio Grande’s flow is diverted and drained, flooding into pecan orchards and feeding crops like onions, corn and famously peppery green chiles, for which the state is known ...
A reality check on Biden’s ‘30 by 30’ conservation plan
Jun 23, 2021 · A week after Joe Biden became president, he signed an executive order that announced his commitment to protecting 30% of U.S. land and water — over 720 million acres — by 2030. The move ...
Below Mount Shasta, a fight burbles over bottled water
May 28, 2018 · Selling water to Nestlé, Crystal Geyser and others could strain aquifers. Mount Shasta reigns over Siskiyou County, a commanding presence even when cloaked in clouds. The snow on its flanks ...
How, 150 years ago, the Homestead Act transformed the West
Dec 9, 2012 · This year marks the 150th anniversary of the fruit of Jefferson’s conviction — the 1862 Homestead Act. The federal law changed the West forever by providing a new start for urban emigrants ...
Questions about the LandBack movement, answered
Aug 22, 2022 · LandBack is not a call for revenge. The white Westerner’s fear that the “other” will rob, dispossess, subjugate and otherwise violate them is a core fear of the colonial mindset, one that is ...
Reckoning with History: The legacy of lynching in the West
Jul 13, 2018 · In his provocatively imagined and deeply researched visual history, “Lynching in the West: 1850-1935,” artist Ken Gonzales-Day compiled known lynchings in California from statehood until the ...
The Supreme Court’s attack on tribal sovereignty, explained
Jul 1, 2022 · As part of its recent precedent-breaking spree, the U.S. Supreme Court turned federal Indian law on its head this week on Wednesday, June 29. In the case of Oklahoma v.Castro-Huerta, a majority of ...
6 things you should know about the 2021 Native American Voting …
Sep 10, 2021 · 6 things you should know about the 2021 Native American Voting Rights Act. Indigenous communities face disproportionate barriers to voting, but the act would help protect this important right ...