The Modern West
Society & Culture
About
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.
Episodes
- Mountain Migrations Trailer
Mountain Migrations Trailer
- The Modern West shares: Our Uncertain Future, an off gridding podcast
This time on the show, we share an episode from another podcast called Our Uncertain Future. It’s produced by Johanna DeBiase and Eric Mack, the couple we met in our last bonus episode called “An Apocalyptic American Dream.” Johanna and Er…
- The Apocalyptic American Dream: A Cheap Dirt Bonus Episode
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 luri…
- Outlawland
The story of one family who lived off grid in a yurt for years in the no man’s land of the Mesa outside Taos, New Mexico. Now that her kids are all grown, Janelle has come full circle. She bought some land and a new yurt and re-adopted thi…
- Abide By The Land
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 f…
- The Flats
We talk with Pulitzer finalist Ted Conover about his book Cheap Land, Colorado: Off Gridders On America’s Edge. Ted bought land in an area outside of Alamosa where he and his neighbors lived off grid with few social safety nets. His take a…
- Charismatic People
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 y…
- Many Hands Make Light Work
When a U.S. Forest Service worker gets fired by DOGE, she’s left scrambling to find a place to live while she finishes building her straw bale house. Luckily, she has lots of friends who not only let her couchsurf, but help with the house…
- Cheap Dirt: Holiday Pause Update
Howdy Cheap Dirt fans! We will be taking a pause this holiday and resuming on January 7th with a new episode.
- The Teeny Tiny House
People in the American West love tiny houses. But, come to find out, per square foot they cost almost 40% more than a regular house. Eric and Erica found a way to get one on the cheap – by winning one in an auction! But are tiny houses rea…
- Embrace the Suck
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 R…
- The American Spirit
We journey into the Red Desert of southwest Wyoming to visit a trona mine worker building his dream cabin off grid for the two small children he’s raising alone. He had to buy extra solar panels for his daughter’s medical equipment and the…
- The Reluctant Pioneers
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 an…
- Cheap Dirt: The Trailer
Cheap Dirt: The Trailer
- A Ghost Paper(ing) Update: Part II
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.
- A Ghost Paper(ing) Update: Part I
In early August, a media company that owned dozens of newspapers across the region suddenly collapsed. It forced eight Wyoming papers to shut down their presses. The outcry statewide was immediate. But a week later the owners of the Buffal…
- Reviving Rural America -- A Modern West Bonus
Reviving Rural America -- A Modern West Bonus
- I Am What I Choose To Become
Five years ago, a Northern Arapaho judge was sent to prison. Now, she helps keep Wind River residents from going back into custody through a unique justice program. Her clients say, "She can relate to everything: the prison system, the pro…
- The Modern West presents Those Who Can't Teach Anymore Season 2
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 podc…
- Wasting Away
Hop in a pickup as we head out into the National Elk Refuge outside Jackson, WY to hear all about the debate over whether to wean elk off winter feeding before chronic wasting disease strikes.
- Home Again
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…
- Ghost Paper(ing)
The local newspaper, the Pinedale Roundup, didn't break the wolf torture story. Why not? Because last winter, News Media Corporation that now owns the paper laid off everyone at the paper except the editor, Cali O'Hare, to run the entire s…
- Boys, Booze & Wolves
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.
- The Pretty Good House
People are solving the affordable housing shortage in the American West by building unusual homes like straw bale or modular.
- A Pluralistic Mindset (with author Samuel Western)
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…
- Gray In Between Trailer
Join us for a brand new season full of nuance, where we move closer to the heart of matters and hear the voices of those who understand them the best. Catch episode one of The Gray In Between coming to you every other Wednesday starting Ap…
- We Are Remarkable Creatures
For westerners, watching the fires burn through Los Angeles in the middle of winter feels like deja vu . It was only four years ago that the Marshall Fire raged through the town of Louisville, outside Boulder, Colorado. That fire is now co…
- The Modern West presents: United By Fire Episode 1
Wildfires are getting closer and closer to home. A new podcast by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science asks some really good questions about our relationship to fire in the American West. Like, can we learn to coexist with fire in the W…
- Neighbor is a Verb
Some think the cowboy has gone riding off into the sunset, never to return. But in our final episode, we hear stories of resilience and community pride. We return to Antonito, CO to hear how Aaron Abeyta started a school there to teach chi…
- Slow Waters Run Deep
Wyoming helped develop western water law, including the very idea that public waters belong to all of us. But the state’s reluctance to update its laws has left ranchers scrambling to protect their streams and wells, as drought and water h…
- A Promise Never To Plow
A few years ago, the May family set off on a trailblazing path to protect their land, and the carbon it stores, by selling carbon credits on the global market. By promising to never plow the land, the Mays store carbon and protect native w…
- Only One Bite
The Rardins are father and son cowboys watching climate change threaten their way of life. They’ve given up on the old idea of “get big or get out” and joined the regenerative ranching movement. Inspired by how bison improve the land, they…
- The Ranch Kid
Ranchers are having a really hard time these days. They’ve got more drought, more conflict, expensive land, high rates of suicide, just to name a few. But this fall the University of Wyoming launched a new agricultural leadership degree. T…
- Big is Fragile
We follow the cow’s journey from the mountain pasture to the feedlot and eventually the slaughterhouse. Along the way, we hear from animal welfare advocate Temple Grandin and cattle handlers who all want a fairer, more humane market – and…
- Nothing Heals
We head to Wyoming’s Red Desert - and hear the history of the 19th century range wars. They led to laws requiring grazing fees and regular land health check-ups. But over a century later, some say these regulations haven’t done enough to p…
- Cows = Civilization
The history of how we brought the pastoral cow to live on the arid lands of the west is a violent one. Jim Elliot grew up in the shadow of that history and his stories are quintessential cowboy, full of guns, death and hard winters. But ev…
- Se Benefician De Ella
The Abeyta family has been driving sheep down from the mountains of southern Colorado for generations. But it hasn’t been easy to keep that tradition alive – they’ve had to fight for it. Through their eyes, we trace back the beginnings of…
- The Rolling Stone: Bonus 2 of The Great Individualist Reboot
The Rolling Stone: The Modern West is re-sharing our ranching series The Great Individualist. This time, we explore our deep abiding love for the cowboy. "If you get out there and bust your butt taking care of cows and even putting up hay,…
- The Rancher of the Future: Bonus 1 of The Great Individualist Reboot
We're back with a new season of Modern West. Listen to the first episode of The Great Individualist Reboot now!
- Great Individualist Reboot Trailer
It's a new season of the Great Individualist - new episode premieres on August 21st.
- The Suffragist In The Basement
Wyoming is known as the “equality state” because it was the first in the nation to pass women’s suffrage. And for decades it’s proudly recognized that history with a statue of Esther Hobart Morris, Wyoming's first Justice of the Peace and…
- One Size Does Not Fit All - Part Six of High Altitude Tales
Meet Iva, an innovative teacher conducting scientific research with her middle schoolers on the Wind River Reservation. They even set up trail cameras! It's the final episode of High Altitude Tales.
- The Tamers and the Tamed - Part Five of High Altitude Tales
Recidivism rates in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world, and in Wyoming, 33 percent of inmates are back in prison within the first year. But studies show that animal therapy can help reduce that by teaching things like responsibi…
- Chasing the Dragon - Part Four of High Altitude Tales
In the resort town of Jackson Hole, WY, the housing shortage is so bad that people are finding crazy workarounds for how to live there. Like this guy, living in his van. "It’s cold when you come back. And then the issue is, like, all your…
- Wolves #2101 and #2301- Part Three of High Altitude Tales
The story of two wolves in Colorado’s North Park, a father and a son, and how the community is – or is not – coming to terms with their presence. "Wolves represent a lot of what farming and ranching is about, which is like, you have no con…
- The Sixth Boom - Part Two of High Altitude Tales
Take a bike ride into a tiny forgotten historic mining town that sits at the intersection of two beloved through trails. For hardcore bikers and hikers, this town is an oasis. And for a community used to cycles of boom and bust, there's ho…
- Courage is a Muscle - Part One of High Altitude Tales
Exactly 100 years to the day after a woman named Eleanor Davis became the first recorded woman to ever climb the Grand Teton – a nearly 14,000 foot-tall mountain that’s the namesake for Grand Teton National Park – an all-female group of cl…
- 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.
- 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.”
- 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.