The Modern West

 One hundred and forty years after the Rock Springs Massacre killed 28 Chinese coal miners, descendants return to tell the story and dig up clues. The commemoration happens as the town reckons with new immigration tensions. 

 A new book, "The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier," weaves together the stories of seven historical characters as they crisscross the American West in the 1800s. Some of them, like Sacajawea, you’ll recognize. Pulitzer-finalist Megan Kate Nelson says there are others we should know more about but just don’t. We discuss why setting Western history straight is so crucial to the American project. 

 Love stories set in the American West are often extra romantic and heart-wrenching because of all the moving around the lovers are forced into. Jenny and Brian Drollinger’s story takes them to every nook of the American West. But they actually met in high school in Alaska. It’s a real life 80’s rom-com, with all the miscommunications, near misses and twists of fate. 

 It’s not just human animals that migrate around the West. So do wildlife. We start this season learning about how humans are adapting to the expanding range of grizzly bears. We head out into the field with wildlife photographers, go toe-to-toe with a robo bear, pick apples to reduce food rewards, and meet a herd of cattle getting radio collared. 

 This time on the show, we share an episode from another podcast called Our Uncertain Future. It’s produced by Johanna DeBiase and Eric Mack, the couple we met in our last bonus episode called “An Apocalyptic American Dream.” Johanna and Eric and their teenage daughter live in a strawbale house in the no man’s land of the Mesa, a few miles west of Taos, New Mexico. They’ve been documenting the reasons they’ve chosen this life, and in this episode, they celebrate six years of off gridding. 

 A visit to a family living in a straw bale house on the Mesa outside Taos, New Mexico. They say they’re feeling less stressed about the chaos of the world because living off grid has given them survival skills. And they delve into the lurid history of how this subdivision turned into a no man’s land in the first place. 

The story of one family who lived off grid in a yurt for years in the no man’s land of the Mesa outside Taos, New Mexico. Now that her kids are all grown, Janelle has come full circle. She bought some land and a new yurt and re-adopted this life in her 50’s.

Celeste and Gary Havener seem to have a perfect homesteading story: the horses, the garden, the honeybees, an amazing mountain view from every window. But theirs is actually a cautionary tale of enduring cancer, COVID and multiple forest fires. At 70, they almost gave up the life. But then they realized they were surrounded by support.

We talk with Pulitzer finalist Ted Conover about his book Cheap Land, Colorado: Off Gridders On America’s Edge. Ted bought land in an area outside of Alamosa where he and his neighbors lived off grid with few social safety nets. His take away? It’s a difficult life with incredible views and intense poverty. But you can find lifelong friends and experience a special sense of liberation.