Publisher's Letter

Dear Reader,

I remember the first time I saw Stanley, Idaho. I was a war zone reporter from San Francisco, my head and heart full of sad stories from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the world’s broken places. I’d spent a decade trying to balance a comfortable life as a mother and wife with my love affair with a career that nearly killed me several times. The Sawtooth Mountains loomed under pristine blue, and the Salmon River flowed beneath, endlessly affirming its path to the sea. The wide-open beauty spoke to me in a foreign language I’d never heard, but it sounded true. This is the Wild West, it said, where the wild things are. Welcome home.

So, 20 years ago, I changed my life and moved to that town of 82 people, about 300 dogs, and the third coldest temperatures in the lower 48. I entered Custer County as one of 11 Democrats, a California divorcee, vegetarian, wanna-be cowgirl who paid far too much for a log cabin with only a wood stove, brandishing a new Stetson and a shiny pickup with a Peace Sign on the bumper. I simply could not fathom why the fifth generation ranching family next door did not say, “Welcome home.” Today, I understand.

The right to freedom is chromosomally inherent in our American DNA, no matter our political party. So too, is the stubborn ideal of the Wild West as forever ours for the taking. From the five cent chronicles of Buffalo Bill’s adventures to the COVID-current population explosion in Idaho and neighboring states: the myth of never-ending opportunities for cityslicker adventure and real estate sustains. This issue of IdaHome salutes the Wild West- real and the ideal.

Harrison Berry tackles Congressman Mike Simpson’s controversial proposal to save the last of the Sockeye Salmon. Lunacy or legacy? The Congressman offers factual answers. Micah Drew, a Boise-born reporter living in Montana, compares the West of his childhood to the sobering facts of life he writes about every day, including inescapable climate change. Heat and drought haunts global headlines and Sam Stetzer examines the frontline bravery of the Boise Hotshots. Of course, the West could not have been tamed if not for the cowboy, and yet, none are wilder than the bronc and bull riders on the professional rodeo circuit. Check out the photographic essay that takes you behind the scenes before those electrifying eight seconds.

As always, there’s far more to see than what meets the eye here—so dig in! Whatever your vision of the Wild West, we hope you enjoy what you read in IdaHome!

Let ‘Er Buck!

Karen Day

Publisher

Bronc and bull riding is a gender-specific sport-but it wasn’t always that way. Bonnie McCarroll was born near Boise, in 1897. A champion rodeo performer and bronc rider, she was killed while competing at the Pendleton Round Up in 1929. Her death prompted rodeo officials to eliminate bronc riding as a women’s sport.