The original inhabitants of the Lake Tahoe Basin the Washoe are a fascinating people. With a history in the Sierra Nevada stretching back 9000 years they are the oldest tribe in California. They have a fascinating history before and after the coming of the Americans. In American history the Washoe guided Kit Carson and Charles Fremont through the Sierra Nevada, later they were the first to bring food to the stranded Donner Party. The Washoe have tribal lore that speaks of the Si Te Cah tribe, long believed to be just an ignorant savage fantasy, recent discoveries have proven they are true. The Si Te Cah otherwise known as Sasquach or Bigfoot truly did exist and their mummified re-mains have been found in several locations. From a population numbering approximately 1,500 people whos homeland stretched from Mono Lake in the South to Honey Lake in the North the Washoe were reduced to only 500 people in 1866 with no land to call their own. They persevered and are still living in their homeland as friendly, hardworking, creative American citizens.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Montana started emerging from its rugged past. Permanent towns and cities, powered by mining, tourism, and trade, replaced ramshackle outposts. Yet Montana's frontier endured, both in remote pockets and in the wider cultural imagination. The frontier thus played a continuing role in Montanans' lives, often in fascinating ways. Author John Clayton has written extensively on these shifts in Montana history, chronicling the breadth of the frontier's legacy with this diverse collection of stories. Explore the remnants of Montana's frontier through stories of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the Beartooth Highway, and the lost mining camp of Swift Current--and through legendary characters such as Charlie Russell, Haydie Yates, and "Liver-eating" Johnston.

Noted for its innovative coverage of the West and the environment, this best selling U.S. history text provides students with a clear political narrative that incorporates social, cultural, military, and economic history.Each chapter begins with a dramatic vignette that both draws students into the chapter and presents the chapter's main themes. The vignettes are followed by three to five focus questions that provide a framework to help students understand the most important topics in the chapter.

With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013.

Early one frigid morning in January a young man named Thos Kahale walked into the icy waters of Lake Tahoe and died a brutal death. Hired to investigate, Owen McKenna learns that the Hawaiian side of the man's family had a secret shrine hidden in a cave in the cliffs of Kauai. Owen Flies to Kauai and hears about a long-lost manuscript that Mark Twain left when he visited Kauai in 1866. The manuscript, which would be worth millions, is rumored to have been lost in a hurricane. Owen suspects that it was hidden in the secret shrine. As more people die, Owen tracks a vicious killer who looks like a Viking. Owen follws the Viking back to Tahoe and learns of a cave of ice that is sacred to Tahoe's Washoe Indians. Thos, who was half Washoe, may have hidden the manuscript in the Tahoe cave. Only one person, whose identity is unknown, knows the answer. Owen and his Great Dane Spot have to find that person before the Viking does, and they are running out of time as they chase the Viking up a mountain in a blizzard to a cave of ice and a battle to the death.

“A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century’s wealthiest self-made Americans…Well-written and worthwhile” (The Wall Street Journal) it’s the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada’s Comstock Lode. Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada. Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious “Bank Ring” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary “Big Bonanza,” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry. Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. “No one does a better job than Crouch when he explores the subject of mining, and no one does a better job than he when he describes the hardscrabble lives of miners” (San Francisco Chronicle). Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudevill stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent's original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.