Sheridan King: Grande Dame of Tuolomne

Sheridan King’s life has been a two-act play, divided in the middle by 1983, the year she took a summer job leading trail rides in Yosemite National Park.

Until then, King had traveled the U.S. working a variety of jobs — school…

Tips for Fellowship Applicants

This time last September, I sat in my home office back in Missoula, Montana, having a tiny panic attack. The deadline for the Fulbright National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship was three weeks away. My cluttered desk summed up the state of my application…

Blood Moon Over Red Square

Act One: A Good Idea

The last time a Blood Moon shone down on Red Square, it was 1982. Soviet officials were strict about photography. You couldn’t just traipse on down to the Kremlin and snap a shot. But thirty-three years later…

Bakken Beckons

A SEA OF GRASS — that’s how pioneering cattlemen described the Northern Plains, where wind gusts buffeted rangelands into undulating waves. Riding through swells of stirrup-high grass, a cowboy could feel the vertigo of a sailor adrift at sea.

Home, Home on the … Steppes?

A great migration is underway in the world of cattle ranching. Cowboys from the United States, Canada, and Australia are taking cattle herds numbering in the thousands to start ranches on the Eurasian steppes. Why? Because the people of Russia and Kazakhstan have asked for their…

For Some Russian Farmers, Trade Sanctions Never Tasted so Good

Her name was Natalya. Her cheeks were ruddy, like a matryoshka doll. She had the figure of a dome atop St. Basil’s Cathedral. She was filthy, like she’d been dragged across a field.

National Day of the Cowboy

Wait, cowboys still exist?

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I heard that question a lot. It surprised me a bit. I thought the average, college-educated American understood where their food comes from. Grocery stores and restaurants wouldn’t have beef…

Kazakhstan: Where Horses are Revered and Eaten

The yurt smelled of horse. Not in a way I was familiar with–like the nutty odor of a wet saddle pad, which makes me pine for a mountain trail. This eau de equino was the smell of cooked horse meat. And it wafted from a platter being passed in my…