I Am Interchange

Firestorm: The Wildfire Management Debate

As explosive a dialogue as the subject to which it pertains, the question of whether or not to interfere with the natural processes of the forest is not a new one and the problems Montana, California and a host of other states now face is one rooted in history. Following the Great Fire of 1910 – the largest in US history – which burned three million acres in the northwest in less than three days, the fledgling Forest Service initiated a strict policy to control and extinguish every forest fire. Despite raging debates within the profession about the wisdom of the policy, it held sway until well into the 70s, when fire ecology became a field of study and a focus for the range of stakeholders and citizens in the business of managing the nation’s forests. …

The Search for Ashley HeavyRunner Loring

In June of 2017, 21-year-old Ashley HeavyRunner Loring disappeared. While no stranger to darker moods and the questionable choices that come standard with young adulthood, Ashley was a smart, resourceful young woman with a good heart and a commitment to helping others. She had a particularly close relationship with her sister, Kimberly HeavyRunner Loring. So, when Kimberly took a three-month trip to Morocco to visit her future husband in the spring of 2017, the sisters developed a pattern of regular phone calls that continued until just a few days before Kimberly’s arrival home. Though not altogether out of character for Ashley, the days of silence she returned to left Kimberly wondering. And worried. In a turn of events both devastating and disturbingly ironic, Ashley HeavyRunner Loring was to become one of the missing and murdered indigenous people, or MMIP, for whom she had advocated in the months leading up to her disappearance. …

Podcast Intro/Outro: Reconciliation

How does a nation reconcile a heinous history of colonialism, slavery, murder, rape, and thievery to itself, let alone the generations that have sprung forth from those it harmed? There are fair arguments for reparations. There are equally persuasive challenges to make the past just that and to come together as a global community of differently colored, shaped, and sized Homo sapiens stumbling through existence with good intentions, but a particular aptitude for making trouble. Humanity has, after all, a rather unadulterated history of exploration and colonization, regardless of origin, ethnicity, and religion; this isn’t American-made. …