High Altitude Tales Trailer
Miss us? We're back for Season 8 of The Modern West - High Altitude Tales. High Altitude Tales drops on April 3rd on all of your favorite streaming platforms.
Mar 20, 2024•4 min
The Modern West
Exploring the evolving identity of the American West. Produced by Wyoming Public Media and PRX, The Modern West takes you on a sound-rich journey into some of America's most iconic landscapes. Guided by host Melodie Edwards' personal connection to the region, it's an unflinching look at the American West--its problematic history, its modern-day struggles and resilience, and how its present and future are being shaped.
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Episodes
Urban Wildfires: a Burn Scar Bonus
“In Paradise, what the fire didn't take was the sense of community that exists there. Our mission was, ‘look how far we've come, and it’s a vision to the future.”
Feb 07, 2024•38 min•Season 8Ep. 5
Our Imperfect Human Selves
Ariel makes the trip out to see the new construction of her family home. But it’s nothing like the one that burned down in the Marshall Fire. Her feeling of solastalgia is long gone.
Jan 24, 2024•49 min•Season 8Ep. 5
A Desirable Neighborhood
Ariel’s family and neighbors are starting to rebuild after the Marshall Fire destroyed their homes. But now new green building codes are making it super expensive. Ariel’s brother is dubious.
Jan 10, 2024•44 min•Season 8Ep. 4
The Burn Scar: Bonus Episode
Listen to a behind-the-scenes conversation with The Burn Scar’s producer Ariel Lavery and The Modern West host Melodie Edwards. Ariel says the idea for the series came to her in the shower. “I just needed to record this. I just needed to somehow remember the feelings of visiting the site, being there.”
Dec 27, 2023•16 min•Season 8Ep. 4
Our Safe Place
Ariel’s neighbors all want to know what caused the Marshall Fire. Then a new forensic report comes out, confirming climate change isn’t at the door…it just burned the door down. #OurSafePlace Part III of #TheBurnScar
Dec 13, 2023•44 min•Season 8Ep. 3
Solastalgia
Ariel returns to see the burn scar that was once her childhood home. She feels strangely…homesick. “Imagining one’s home place meet its end – envisioning just what this neighborhood looked like engulfed in flames – I wonder if this is all part of the feeling of solastalgia.”
Nov 29, 2023•44 min•Season 8Ep. 2
The Winter Fire
It’s the most expensive fire in Colorado History. Listen now.
Nov 15, 2023•25 min•Season 8Ep. 1
The Burn Scar Trailer
The Marshall Fire was the most expensive fire in Colorado history. The Burn Scar is a tender yet carefully investigated podcast of one family, one fire and the hard choices people are making in the wake of increasing natural disasters. Hear the trailer now.
Nov 01, 2023•4 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Bison Stories: A Conversation With Ken Burns - Part 4
Filmmaker Ken Burns just released a new series called American Buffalo and The Modern West sat down to talk to him about it. He says it’s a very new direction for him. “This is a project we’ve been thinking about for more than 30 years – a biography of an animal.”
Oct 18, 2023•27 min•Season 7Ep. 4
Bison Stories: Bringing Home the Buffalo - Part 3
We’re re-sharing all of our bison episodes in preparation for the release of the new Ken Burns film, The American Buffalo! In Part III, we journey to the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana to learn why tribes there are rescuing wild Yellowstone bison… and we experience a bison release ceremony.
Oct 11, 2023•50 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Bison Stories: Bringing Home the Buffalo - Part 2
Did you know documentarian Ken Burns is coming out with a film on the American buffalo? I’m going to share my interview with him in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we’re re-releasing all of our bison episodes! In Part II: why American settlers chose to wipe out the bison and replace them with cattle.
Oct 04, 2023•39 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Bison Stories: Bringing Home the Buffalo - Part 1
Bringing Home the Buffalo…part one of our mini series Bison Stories. Find it under podcasts at wyomingpublicmedia.org.
Sep 27, 2023•29 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Bonus: On Land Podcast from Western Landowners Alliance
You might remember this daunting statistic from our season on ranching: the American West is facing its biggest drought in 1200 years. This special episode from the On Land podcast is all about solutions to that water crisis. Geologist Caroline Nash joins for a conversation about building resilience in times of uncertainty, how restoring beavers to our Western landscapes could help with watershed restoration, and the ways landowners across the West are experimenting with innovative land manageme...
Aug 30, 2023•46 min
Bonus Episode 3: A Conversation with Lakota Historian Jeff Means
As you might have noticed from previous episodes, Jeff is a committed skeptic. But still, I decide to start by asking Jeff, does he believe healing this history is even possible?
Aug 02, 2023•20 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Existence As Protest: Mending the Hoop Part 8
I wanted to be part of contributing to identify healing interventions for our community. And also sharing with people that knowledge, like, it's not all your fault.
Jul 19, 2023•55 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Land Back: Mending the Hoop Part 7
It’s popular these days to read a land acknowledgement at public events, but Indigenous leaders and thinkers say that should only be the beginning — “a commitment that should be followed by action.” Like, returning the land itself.
Jun 28, 2023•53 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Bonus Episode 2: A Conversation with Lakota Historian Jeff Means
Jeff and I pick up the conversation today where our last one left off. As the 19th century came to a close, the United States may have stopped direct battle with the Plains nations… but the war was far from over. As Native communities were forced onto reservations, the U.S. now used new techniques to attempt cultural genocide … alienating children from their communities at boarding schools and exterminating the bison. Throughout the conversation, Jeff points out the ways Indigenous communities c...
Jun 15, 2023•25 min•Season 6Ep. 7
#MMIW: Mending the Hoop Part 6
Native American women are the most stalked, raped, murdered and exploited of any other race in this country.
May 31, 2023•43 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Rematriation: Mending the Hoop Part 5
That's the identity for our tribe is our buffalo. So they are our relatives. I always cry when they come. It's always really emotional when they come home. Because I believe that's going to heal our people.
May 10, 2023•50 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Killing The Indian Inside: Mending the Hoop Part 4
This time on the Modern West…to make sure the Plains Indian Wars don’t flare up again, the U.S. army starts taking hostages…the tribes’ children. If they ran away, where would they go? They're 1000s of miles away from home. It was strategic on their part. It really isolated them. Killing the Indian Inside…it’s part four of our series Mending the Hoop.
Apr 20, 2023•48 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Bonus Episode: A Conversation with Lakota Historian Jeff Means
It seemed important to share some of the behind the scenes conversations for this series. As a white woman reporting on Indian Country, Melodie always knew she would need extra guidance putting this season together. So she’s been regularly sitting down to talk with Oglala Lakota member and Native American historian Jeff Means to discuss best practices.
Apr 06, 2023•28 min•Season 6Ep. 4
The Broken Hoop: Mending the Hoop Part 3
The Plains Tribes continue their winning streak at the Rosebud and Little Bighorn fights. But it only leads the federal government to crack down harder. Soon, many tribal leaders surrender and, in despair, take their people to live on tiny reservations. Then along comes a new ceremony: the Ghost Dance. And that changes the dynamics of the war drastically.
Mar 27, 2023•44 min•Season 6Ep. 3
The War Pipe: Mending the Hoop Part 2
After the massacre, the survivors flee into the bitter cold night and eventually are rescued by the Lakota. The tribes form a great alliance and decide war is justified. And so, in the months after Sand Creek, what ensues is a series of battles that shocks and awes the U.S. army. Never before have they witnessed the full might of the greatest mounted horsemen in the world.
Mar 08, 2023•36 min•Season 6Ep. 2
The Witness Trees: Mending the Hoop Part 1
For the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes, the Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864 doesn’t feel like distant history at all. That’s the day that the Colorado cavalry tortured and killed over 200 people, mostly women, children, and elderly – one of the worst atrocities in U.S. history. To the tribes, it feels like there’s still a lot of healing to do. And so, these days, they’re working to do just that.
Feb 22, 2023•49 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Mending the Hoop Trailer
Recently, you may have noticed a lot of big news coming out of Indigenous America, from protests at Standing Rock to the return of wild bison to efforts to bring home ancestral remains and artifacts. But when you talk to the movers and shakers, the conversation often comes back around to a bitter history – the Plains Indian Wars. This season we hear the story from the point of view of the Plains tribes themselves. We discover how raw that story still is, and yet how communities are coming togeth...
Feb 08, 2023•3 min
Bonus: Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore
A few seasons back, we had a series called Cowboy Up that dug into the juvenile justice system in Wyoming. If you liked thinking about education in the west, you’re going to love this. We are sharing an episode from the podcast Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore, produced by one of our very own, Charles Fournier. This is a narrative podcast series that takes a look at why teachers are leaving education and what can be done to stop the exodus. In this episode, we’ll hear from Charles’ wife, Jennie and...
Jan 19, 2023•43 min
Bonus: Reframing Rural
For all you Modern West fans who love our last season about ranching and the cowboy mythos in the American West, have we got a treat for you. We’re going to share an episode from our good pals at the podcast Reframing Rural. It’s now in the middle of its third season “Groundwork,” and they’ve been sharing stories about host Megan Torgerson’s family farm as well as the widening wealth gap in Montana…think towns like Bozeman and Missoula. This episode we’re going to hear about Jeanie Alderson, a f...
Dec 15, 2022•58 min
Revising the Wilderness Tale
This time on The Modern West, we join an 1896 hunting expedition to America’s first national park. The journey reveals cracks in our concepts of Yellowstone, a place entangled with violence toward the Indigenous people who long took care of the region.
Nov 23, 2022•38 min
The Great Dying: Revisited
November is Native American Heritage Month…and in recognition, we thought we’d re-release the first episode of our third season “Shall Furnish Medicine.” In it, we connected the dots between the spread of European diseases among Indigenous communities when Europeans first arrived and we examined what that history of genocide meant when the COVID-19 pandemic struck home in Native communities. This episode, “The Great Dying,” recently won a couple of big awards – a regional Edward R. Murrow Award ...
Oct 28, 2022•57 min
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