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Jim Lichatowich: Don’t Lose Faith in Nature

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Jim Lichatowich is as happy as anyone that the Elwha dams on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula came down. But a recent attempt to witness the biological recovery
there reminds him that there are equally stubborn obstacles to steelhead and salmon recovery that unfortunately can’t be removed with dynamite or heavy equipment. “A
former colleague of mine organized a trip to Elwha after the dams were out,” Lichatowich says. “He called me and said, ‘the trip is still on but you’re not on it. The guy
from National Marine Fisheries Service that was gonna show us around mentioned your name to his supervisor and was told you couldn’t come.’ So I was uninvited. But that was the week that Republicans shut the government down, so no one got to go anyway.”

Brianna Proctor

Proctor's Snake River Cutty from Wyoming's Hoback River.

Brianna Proctor. Finding new water, the hard way

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For Brianna Proctor—a lead helicopter crewmember based in Swan Valley, Idaho—learning about and working near rivers all over the country has become a major benefit of her firefighting career. She’s been a wildland firefighter for 15 years, working primarily in the air attack and helicopter realm as a member of what’s called a “helitack” crew—a group that works alongside helicopters to facilitate water drops, fire recons, and the shuttling of crews into remote areas of the fire.