The Modern West

Mountain Migrations Trailer

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.

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.

Paul Menjares moved to Frisco, Colorado to live the good life as a musician. But when his landlords kept canceling his leases to turn his apartments into short term rentals, he made a crazy decision. He moved into his car. That was three years ago. Now he’s the manager of a program helping other people do the same thing.

Howdy Cheap Dirt fans! We will be taking a pause this holiday and resuming on January 7th with a new episode.

We usually think of full time RVers as retirees. But these days, over half are Millennials and Gen Zers. And way more people are adopting the RV life. Including a house builder who doesn’t have a house of his own. Instead he lives in his RV on the edge of Wyoming’s Big Hollow. He says, off gridding isn’t for the faint of heart.

You’ve probably seen viral videos on social media about how quaint it is to live an off-grid life. But these videos belie something more problematic going on beneath the surface. An affordable housing crisis that’s affecting the working and middle class more all the time. Eight of the ten states with the least affordable housing are in the American West. And that’s causing lots of resilient westerners to get creative about their living situations. Including Host Melodie Edwards who shares her own story of living off grid in a canvas dome in a no man’s land in northern Arizona.

Two conversations about Wyoming's news ecosystem: one with Cali O'Hare, the editor of the Pinedale Roundup and a roundtable discussion with Solution Journalism's Melissa Cassutt and WyoFile's Rod Miller.

Reviving Rural America -- A Modern West Bonus

This time, an episode from another podcast we care a lot about. It’s called Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore, produced by Charles Fournier, the former sound designer of the Modern West. (To illustrate just what a back scratching industry podcasting is, Melodie happens to be the editor of this podcast as well.) Charles dives into what’s causing public school teachers to leave the profession. We'll hear episode one of his second season in which he collected audio journals through one full school year from teachers across the country. He starts at the beginning, in August.

Back in the 1930’s, a trading post swapped Northern Arapaho artifacts for food and other basic necessities. Decades later, a descendent opened boxes in a storage room of the Episcopal Church in Laramie, Wyoming. There, she found a photo of her grandfather, Chief Yellow Calf.“And so I talked to my grandfather, and I said, 'Grandfather, is there something that I'm supposed to do here? Show me. Guide me.'”80 years later, the church has finally returned the artifacts to the tribe. We attend the ceremony.

It’s been a year since a man brought an injured wolf into a bar in Sublette County, Wyoming. What does it tell us about how small-town life is changing? A very personal story from the perspective of someone who grew up there.

Wyoming author and economist Samuel Western is a master at tracing back the beginnings of issues in the American West. He’s an economist with a deep fascination for history and culture that get at “the gray in between” in truly revelatory ways. He talks with host Melodie Edwards about his new book The Spirit of 1889.