IT’S DIFFICULT TO TURN A CORNER ANYMORE and not see the white and red image of a Fly Agaric mushroom emblazoned on hats, scarves, shirts, earrings and even on the skin as tattoos. The irony is that the Fly Agaric — the red-capped, white-speckled amanita mushroom (Amanita muscaria) of fairy tales, is poisonous. The iconic …
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE IN DEEP RELATIONSHIP with the land on which we live? The 33rd Annual Headwaters Conference, hosted by Western Colorado University in Gunnison in December 2022, aimed to answer that question. The theme of the conference was “Land Back: Indigenous Homecoming in the Headwaters.” In recent years, the conference focused …
WE DO NOT DESERVE BEAVERS. Well, OK. American beavers can be complicated neighbors. They sometimes interfere with our plans, tunneling into canal banks, flooding farmers’ fields and blocking and rerouting waterways. They can destroy infrastructure and take down power lines. They harvest landscape plantings. But oh, the beneficial things they do for us while they …
