Nature (Version 2.0)
Charles B. Hayes is a philosopher, naturalist, poet, and outdoorsman. He spent the summer of 2019 with the Mountain Legacy Project helping to reproduce photos taken in the Canadian Rockies a century ago. This comparative record provides an invaluable data set for tracking climate change and human use of the landscape. Charles' reflections on map-making …
Continue reading "History, Wonder, and Care in the Canadian Rockies, by Charles B. Hayes"
I never knew a northern spotted owl could parachute vertically through the forest. This delightful image came from a researcher who spent eight years studying the owls in the Oregon Cascades. He had personally witnessed a descent and could hardly contain his excitement when he told us about it. To find the reticent Strix for …
Jetlag gets you up early. On the first day back from a trip to Europe, I found myself alert in bed at 5.30 a.m. wondering how exactly I was going to fill the time till breakfast. A casual jog around the neighborhood would not normally be my first choice but it felt like a good …
This was the third time I had witnessed Andrea, the gruff Italian woodsman and truffle hunter, working closely with his dog Zara. Zara is a short-haired pointer, an awkward-looking blend of floppy ears, long legs, and bountiful canine energy who just happens to be excellent at sniffing out the black truffles that lie beneath the …
Continue reading "When People, Dogs, and Fungi Form an Inseparable Whole"
On the same day as hundreds of protesters were getting arrested in London for their part in the Extinction Rebellion, a debate was brewing across the Atlantic that goes right to the heart of what may be required to save the planet. Sierra Magazine editor Jason Mark began the debate with a short essay titled …
I crossed the ocean this week on a sparkling new Boeing 787. This may be the fifth or sixth time I have flown on this model and each occasion leaves me filled with admiration for this emblem of contemporary technology. Fuel efficient, light, and comfortable, the 787 feels like a paragon of what human design …
Continue reading "Of Boeings and Biotech: When Trust Is Required"
A mother and calf moose were found bedded down in an alleyway in downtown Missoula, Montana this last Friday morning. They were resting up somewhere between a law office and a bank. People showing up for work at the end of the week were warned to look both ways before they ran across the street …
Continue reading "Of Moose and Sturgeon: Lessons from the Ragged Edges of the Anthropocene"
“Okay, let’s do this.” These were my self-directed words of encouragement as I decided to take the right turn and head one final time up the hill of the outer ski loop. I had been keeping my eye on the clock as I had to pick my wife up from the airport in less than …
Although it happened nearly three decades ago, I still remember the smugness with which the visiting professor announced to the class that his op-ed had been published. The Washington Post had printed a piece he wrote about how nobody should be cutting down Christmas trees in order to bring them into their living room for …
Continue reading "What a Christmas Tree Taught me about Politics"
With two or three hours to kill before we needed to drop off our rental car at the airport, my wife and I just wanted a snack, a cup of tea, and a stroll around a quaint neighborhood somewhere in this (not-to-be-named) unfamiliar city. Clueless about where to go, we pulled off the road and …
