Private herds helped save America’s wild bison. Today, bison restoration remains a largely private matter.

Can the mighty Colorado reach the sea?

Excerpt:

Over its 1,450 mile tumble to the sea, the Colorado River presents one marvel after another.

It waters the high-altitude hay meadows in the Rocky Mountains and succors sun-drenched melon fields in the desert along the Mexican border. It carries snowmelt from the Never Summer Mountains to places where the snow never sticks. Along the way, it flows through the showerheads and Jacuzzis of Las Vegas, then takes a scrubbing before pumps launch it skyward in those elaborate fountains, entertaining tourists with what the gamblers bathed in yesterday.

Los Angeles takes a big gulp. So do Denver and Phoenix and Tucson, all places separated from the river by altitude or mountain ranges that engineers have outmaneuvered with pumps, concrete and gravity.

Almost everybody in the United States takes a sip. If you eat winter lettuce or wear a cotton T-shirt or drink milk from California, there’s a good chance you’re consuming Colorado River water that helped transform soil and sunlight into chlorophyll and fiber and protein.

For a century, people have tried to pull fossil fuels from the ground beneath the valley—on both sides of the border—without much success.

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Note: The thumbnail image that accompanies this post is a cropped image from the extraordinary photographs by Peter McBride that accompany the article.

The federal government spends billions in Montana. Here’s where it goes, county by county.

Can two countries come together to save a pristine valley?

Excerpt:

Yet isolated though it is by geography, bad roads and weather, the North Fork has been at the center of some of the continent’s thorniest struggles over development.

For a century, people have tried to pull fossil fuels from the ground beneath the valley—on both sides of the border—without much success. A well drilled in the early 20th century in what is now Glacier National Park didn’t produce. During a spike in energy prices in the 1970s and 1980s, oil companies punched deep holes on the Canadian side of the border, seeking oil and gas. In Montana, oil and natural-gas developers purchased rights to drill along parts of the river. In the end, however, the prospective cost of building a permanent mining infrastructure up the wild, 80-mile valley kept the drilling rigs at bay.

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While most bear attacks on humans can be explained, last summer’s predatory attacks near Cooke City remind us that occasionally, bears see humans as food.

Montana is on the threshold of becoming a major wind energy producer. The benefits are clear, but at what costs?

Nearly four decades after his death, a town gathers to honor a pilot and ponder the memories of a bitter war.

Montana Ranch Helping Kids No One Else Wants

Legendary rodeo poet Paul Zarzyski and singer/songwriter Wylie Gustafson team up to create music infused with the heart of the past that’s grounded in the present.