So'ho-gwa in the Improvement Era
The canyon didn’t have a name for itself, but some of the humans who drank from its waters called it So'ho-gwa. It wasn’t just humans....
Red Butte Creek: Shifting Shorelines
I grew up playing in Red Butte Creek and its neighboring waterways. I planted trees within Red Butte Garden and still find solace on the...
Ute Brave: Copper’s Cradle
Deep within the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, bronze figures line the rows of storage shelves. The archives are sealed, climate controlled,...
LNCO: A Language for the Earthquake to Come
The foundations that dig into the steep hillside and the pipes that weave underground passages merely scratch the surface of the faulted...
Engineering Circle: A Disanthropic History
The place that draws me is a concrete circle, a kind of pedestrian roundabout, in the center of the College of Engineering (COE) campus....
Red Butte Fence: Tracing Animal Movement and Obstruction
Needing a break from studying, I leave the Environmental Humanities building on the University of Utah campus and begin walking towards...
The Big Picture from Big Cottonwood Creekside Park
A few years ago I sat shotgun in a realtor’s car, agonized to leave my mid-city home. Children grown. Hot August. House after unpromising...
Letter on the Hill
Take a road trip out West, and you’re likely to catch sight of a giant letter on a hill. To native Westerners, these hillside letters...
Quarry House: Belonging to Ruin
Quarry House is all walls and rafters—no roof, doors, or windowpanes. Concrete crumbles along edges and in corners. Iron hinges cling to...
The Stegner Graves
Engagement with place always forms the bedrock of Wallace Stegner’s books. In his two autobiographical novels, the huge The Big Rock...