In the 17th century, New Mexico’s vaqueros imparted (under duress, most likely) their “secrets” of horsemanship to the Plains Indians. With these...
Speaking Horse
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Travel & Preservation
Forting Up On the Apache Trail
Ominous clouds threaten rain as I pull off Highway 80 near the Arizona-New Mexico border at the Skeleton Canyon monument. I debate whether or not I...
Columbia, California
Hildreth’s Diggings was a tent and shanty town housing the thousands of miners attracted to today’s Columbia after Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth, his...
Golly, What a Gully!
Theodore (“Don’t call me Teddy!”) Roosevelt earned lasting fame by charging up a Cuban hill in 1898. His greatest legacy in this country might be a...
I Will Kidnap No More Forever
Tourists had been sojourning in Yellowstone National Park each summer since just after its establishment in 1872. They kept coming during the summer...
Trophy Hunting in Yellowstone
A journey along the “Grand Loop” of Yellowstone National Park in the late 1800s was a true adventure. An elite traveling public toured from five to...
Great Secrets of Our National Parks
Through blowing snow, a pair of cowboys rode across the top of a mesa, searching for stray cattle. Quaker rancher Richard Wetherill and his...
Calgary, Alberta
At an elevation of 3,500 feet, the air is mountain fresh, and with chinook winds providing spring-like weather any winter month, the climate is...
Surviving the Santa Fe Indian Market
6:12 p.m. Friday: Now I know what it feels like to be a piece of turquoise in the middle of a Charles Favour mosaic bracelet. It’s...
A Feast Along the Alferd Packer Trail
He was a shoemaker, Army veteran, hunter, guide, scout, miner, convict, harness maker, cane carver, horsehair braider, “jack whacker” and, of...
Durango, Colorado
Along the Ute’s River of Lost Souls (today’s Animas River), you’ll find “water town,” first labeled as Urango by the Basque and later named after...
Bookin’ It
Granville Stuart was a lot of things—merchant, miner, rancher, diplomat, vigilante—and an avid reader. His Montana cabin was filled with books...