The Modern West

Hop in a pickup as we head out into the National Elk Refuge outside Jackson, WY to hear all about the debate over whether to wean elk off winter feeding before chronic wasting disease strikes.

Back in the 1930's, a trading post swapped Northern Arapaho artifacts for food and other basic necessities. Decades later, a descendent opened boxes in a storage room of the Episcopal Church in Laramie, Wyoming. There, she found a photo of her grandfather, Chief Yellow Calf.“And so I talked to my grandfather, and I said, 'Grandfather, is there something that I'm supposed to do here? Show me. Guide me.'”80 years later, the church has finally returned the artifacts to the tribe. We attend the ceremony.

The local newspaper, the Pinedale Roundup, didn't break the wolf torture story. Why not? Because last winter, News Media Corporation that now owns the paper laid off everyone at the paper except the editor, Cali O'Hare, to run the entire show by herself. It's part of the corporate consolidation of local news. There's now a national effort to stop these legacy papers from becoming “ghost papers." One woman's story of running a paper in the middle of breaking international news.

It's been a year since a man brought an injured wolf into a bar in Sublette County, Wyoming. What does it tell us about how small-town life is changing? A very personal story from the perspective of someone who grew up there.

People are solving the affordable housing shortage in the American West by building unusual homes like straw bale or modular.

Wyoming author and economist Samuel Western is a master at tracing back the beginnings of issues in the American West. He's an economist with a deep fascination for history and culture that get at “the gray in between” in truly revelatory ways. He talks with host Melodie Edwards about his new book The Spirit of 1889.

Join us for a brand new season full of nuance, where we move closer to the heart of matters and hear the voices of those who understand them the best. Catch episode one of The Gray In Between coming to you every other Wednesday starting April 9th.

For westerners, watching the fires burn through Los Angeles in the middle of winter feels like deja vu. It was only four years ago that the Marshall Fire raged through the town of Louisville, outside Boulder, Colorado. That fire is now considered the most costly fire in Colorado history. But that deja vu is especially acute for those who survived the Marshall Fire. Like Ariel Lavery's family. An update from our 2023 season The Burn Scar.

Wildfires are getting closer and closer to home. A new podcast by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science asks some really good questions about our relationship to fire in the American West. Like, can we learn to coexist with fire in the West?  United By Fire explores our relationship with the land amid rapidly changing wildfire behavior in a world that's burning hotter and faster than ever.

Some think the cowboy has gone riding off into the sunset, never to return. But in our final episode, we hear stories of resilience and community pride. We return to Antonito, CO to hear how Aaron Abeyta started a school there to teach children that success doesn't mean fleeing your hometown. It means staying to celebrate the unique heritage of the community.

Wyoming helped develop western water law, including the very idea that public waters belong to all of us. But the state's reluctance to update its laws has left ranchers scrambling to protect their streams and wells, as drought and water hoarding make water scarcer than ever.

The Endangered Species Act helped bring the Yellowstone-area grizzly population back from the brink of extinction. It also sparked controversy over a question that looms over more species than just grizzly bears: How do we balance the needs of endangered wildlife with the needs of humans?

A few years ago, the May family set off on a trailblazing path to protect their land, and the carbon it stores, by selling carbon credits on the global market.  By promising to never plow the land, the Mays store carbon and protect native wildlife. But with diminishing margins and the looming threat of fire, the road hasn't been easy.

The Rardins are father and son cowboys watching climate change threaten their way of life. They've given up on the old idea of “get big or get out” and joined the regenerative ranching movement. Inspired by how bison improve the land, they raise cattle to protect grasses and reduce emissions. But for many, it's still a financial risk.

Ranchers are having a really hard time these days. They've got more drought, more conflict, expensive land, high rates of suicide, just to name a few. But this fall the University of Wyoming launched a new agricultural leadership degree. The goal is to re-envision the rancher of the future. This summer, a Wyoming kid named Ethan Mills became the first registered student in the program. We tag along as he attends a ranch camp.

We follow the cow's journey from the mountain pasture to the feedlot and eventually the slaughterhouse. Along the way, we hear from animal welfare advocate Temple Grandin and cattle handlers who all want a fairer, more humane market – and one not so monopolized by large corporations.

We head to Wyoming's Red Desert - and hear the history of the 19th century range wars. They led to laws requiring grazing fees and regular land health check-ups. But over a century later, some say these regulations haven't done enough to protect our wild spaces. Not to mention our climate.

The history of how we brought the pastoral cow to live on the arid lands of the west is a violent one. Jim Elliot grew up in the shadow of that history and his stories are quintessential cowboy, full of guns, death and hard winters. But even Jim recognized the tragedy of the attempted annihilation of Indigenous culture and bison to make way for cows. But now, there's growing hope among tribes as bison make a comeback.

The Abeyta family has been driving sheep down from the mountains of southern Colorado for generations. But it hasn't been easy to keep that tradition alive – they've had to fight for it. Through their eyes, we trace back the beginnings of the cowboy to the Mexican vaquero and find out how those adventurous roots are still very much alive in the American southwest.

It's bonus episode 2 of the Great Individualist, listen now!#ModernWest #WyomingPublicMedia

We're back with a new season of Modern West. Listen to the first episode now!

It's a new season of the Great Individualist - new episode premieres on August 21st.

Wyoming is known as the “equality state” because it was the first in the nation to pass women's suffrage. And for decades it's proudly recognized that history with a statue of  Esther Hobart Morris, Wyoming's first Justice of the Peace and a vocal participant in the women's suffrage movement. But that statue is no longer standing in front of the Wyoming state capitol.

One Size Does Not Fit All - Part Six of High Altitude Tales

Recidivism rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world, and in Wyoming, 33 percent of inmates are back in prison within the first year. But studies show that animal therapy can help reduce that by teaching things like responsibility, nonviolence and empathy. Most programs pair inmates with dogs. But Wyoming has a special program – one of only five in the country – that teaches inmates how to tame wild horses.

In the resort town of Jackson Hole, WY, the housing shortage is so bad that people are finding crazy workarounds for how to live there. Like this guy, living in his van. "It's cold when you come back. And then the issue is, like, all your water freezes and all your stuff is frozen. And trying to dry ski stuff or anything like that it's a pain - but once the heaters are goin it gets crankin' in here!"

The story of two wolves in Colorado's North Park, a father and a son, and how the community is – or is not – coming to terms with their presence. "Wolves represent a lot of what farming and ranching is about, which is like, you have no control ultimately." Wolves #2101 and #2301: episode 3 of our series High Altitude Tales.

Take a bike ride into a tiny forgotten historic mining town that sits at the intersection of two beloved through trails. For hardcore bikers and hikers, this town is an oasis. And for a community used to cycles of boom and bust, there's hope this boom could last.

Exactly 100 years to the day after a woman named Eleanor Davis became the first recorded woman to ever climb the Grand Teton – a nearly 14,000 foot-tall mountain that's the namesake for Grand Teton National Park – an all-female group of climbers is summiting the peak to celebrate her legacy. Hannah Habermann tagged along for the adventure.

Miss us? We're back for Season 8 of The Modern West - High Altitude Tales. High Altitude Tales drops on April 3rd on all of your favorite streaming platforms.

“In Paradise, what the fire didn't take was the sense of community that exists there. Our mission was, ‘look how far we've come, and it's a vision to the future.”

Ariel makes the trip out to see the new construction of her family home. But it's nothing like the one that burned down in the Marshall Fire. Her feeling of solastalgia is long gone.

Ariel's family and neighbors are starting to rebuild after the Marshall Fire destroyed their homes. But now new green building codes are making it super expensive. Ariel's brother is dubious.

Listen to a behind-the-scenes conversation with The Burn Scar's producer Ariel Lavery and The Modern West host Melodie Edwards. Ariel says the idea for the series came to her in the shower. “I just needed to record this. I just needed to somehow remember the feelings of visiting the site, being there.”

Ariel's neighbors all want to know what caused the Marshall Fire. Then a new forensic report comes out, confirming climate change isn't at the door…it just burned the door down. #OurSafePlace Part III of #TheBurnScar

Ariel returns to see the burn scar that was once her childhood home. She feels strangely…homesick. “Imagining one's home place meet its end – envisioning just what this neighborhood looked like engulfed in flames – I wonder if this is all part of the feeling of solastalgia.”

It's the most expensive fire in Colorado History. Listen now.

The Marshall Fire was the most expensive fire in Colorado history. The Burn Scar is a tender yet carefully investigated podcast of one family, one fire and the hard choices people are making in the wake of increasing natural disasters. Hear the trailer now.

Filmmaker Ken Burns just released a new series called American Buffalo and The Modern West sat down to talk to him about it. He says it's a very new direction for him. “This is a project we've been thinking about for more than 30 years – a biography of an animal.”

We're re-sharing all of our bison episodes in preparation for the release of the new Ken Burns film, The American Buffalo! In Part III, we journey to the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana to learn why tribes there are rescuing wild Yellowstone bison… and we experience a bison release ceremony.

Did you know documentarian Ken Burns is coming out with a film on the American buffalo? I'm going to share my interview with him in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we're re-releasing all of our bison episodes! In Part II: why American settlers chose to wipe out the bison and replace them with cattle.

Bringing Home the Buffalo…part one of our mini series Bison Stories. Find it under podcasts at wyomingpublicmedia.org.

You might remember this daunting statistic from our season on ranching: the American West is facing its biggest drought in 1200 years. This special episode from the On Land podcast is all about solutions to that water crisis. Geologist Caroline Nash joins for a conversation about building resilience in times of uncertainty, how restoring beavers to our Western landscapes could help with watershed restoration, and the ways landowners across the West are experimenting with innovative land management practices.

As you might have noticed from previous episodes, Jeff is a committed skeptic. But still, I decide to start by asking Jeff, does he believe healing this history is even possible?

I wanted to be part of contributing to identify healing interventions for our community. And also sharing with people that knowledge, like, it's not all your fault.

It's popular these days to read a land acknowledgement at public events, but Indigenous leaders and thinkers say that should only be the beginning — “a commitment that should be followed by action.” Like, returning the land itself.