The American West

MeatEater

In this new podcast, writer Dan Flores presents a big picture history of an American West you've never encountered. With the West's deep time, its grand natural world, and its wild animals as their focus, these episodes tell a fresh story of America's most fascinating region.

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20 episodes
Updated Tuesday

Episodes20

Newest first

Ep. 39: The River That Flowed From Nowhere, Part II
When the U.S. acquired the West with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched two scientific expeditions to explore it. Lewis & Clark became legendary. The historical fiction that follows indicates that with a different outcome, Freeman and Custis would have been famous westerners, too. Here, then, is Part II. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tuesday · 1 hr 5 min
Ep. 38: The River That Flowed From Nowhere, Part I
When the U.S. acquired the West with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched two scientific expeditions to explore it. Lewis & Clark became legendary. Like Apollo 13, Jefferson’s Red River Expedition into the West was a failure. This is how their story should have gone. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
July 21 · 58 min
Ep. 37: The Wolf Returns to the West
One of the stories that will long define the American West in the modern era is the return of the wolf after a century of wholesale attempts to obliterate it. From New Mexico to Montana and west to the Pacific Coast, a five-million year-old native is on its way home again. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
July 14 · 1 hr
Ep. 36: Down the West’s Grandest Canyon
With its many diverse, stupendous landscapes and public lands, the West has long been a region of bucket list adventures. A descent down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon has always been near the top of the list for almost everybody. Here’s what it’s like. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
July 7 · 56 min
Ep. 35: How the Endangered Species Act Saved the West and America
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of America’s most famous laws and contributions to world culture, yet half-a-century after its passage it has become yet another political lightning rod. But if you value having Thoreau’s “entire Earth,” the ESA is one of America’s best ideas. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
June 30 · 55 min
Ep. 34: Big Bend and the Deserts of the West
In the eyes of the world, the West’s several deserts have become defining landscapes for the modern region. But one of them, the Chihuahuan Desert, has produced the only large public lands found anywhere in Texas. Therein lies a story that shapes a state. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
June 23 · 55 min
Ep. 33: Time and Time Again: The Fascinating Evidence from Western Repeat Photography
Calling on the photographic record made of the American West from 150 to 100 years ago, modern photographers have repeated many of the same scenes and found remarkable differences in the ecology and look of western landscapes. The question is, why such change? Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
June 16 · 55 min
Ep. 32: Loving the Plains, Hating the Plains, Rewilding the Plains
While conservation focused national parks creation on the vertical mountains and canyons of the West, the Great Plains ended up de-buffaloed and mostly ignored. But with new, 21st century approaches to reversing that historical slight, the Plains Serengeti is on its way back. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
June 9 · 57 min
Ep. 31: Cabeza de Vaca’s Fantastic Journey
Almost exactly 500 years ago, a shipwrecked Spaniard named Cabeza de Vaca and three companions made the first trans-continental journey in the history of the American West. Then he wrote down his account of eight years in Native America, one of the great First Contact stories of all time. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
June 2 · 51 min
Ep. 30: Jesus and Animus Beneath the Bitterroots
Religion is often at the center of historical events in the West. The founding of modern Montana, in fact, happened when Native people famously pleaded for Christian missionaries. The question was whether the Christians actually understood what the Indians were asking for. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 26 · 52 min
Ep. 29: What Were Charlie Russell and L.A. Huffman Trying to Tell Us?
Charlie Russell and L.A. Huffman became famous for their nostalgic art about the Frontier world they experienced in the West. But with a fascination with what Russell called “Dreamtime Montana,” exactly what were they trying to tell us about the West’s future? Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 19 · 49 min
Ep. 28: Understanding Nature in a Southwestern State
Not only do most Americans misunderstand the great variety in western places, but many westerners are similarly clueless. This episode makes a stab at explaining nature in a part of the West unfamiliar to many, the southwestern state of New Mexico. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 12 · 48 min
Ep. 27: Messages From the Past - The Rock Art of the American West
A tangible and fascinating landscape record of the human past in the West exists in a form barely found elsewhere in America. So-called rock art, images incised and painted on rock faces, still reach out of the past to connect us with the thoughts, dreams, gods, and myths of ancient America. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 5 · 51 min
Ep. 26: Where the Primeval West Abides
In the summer of 2019 a small group of us does a 12-day river descent from Alaska’s Brooks Range through the heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, experiencing a preserved slice of primeval western America that seems in perpetual danger of being destroyed by humanity’s relentless addiction to oil. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
April 21 · 51 min
Ep. 25: Thinking About Big History in One Western Place
A road trip with Steven Rinella across the High Plains to the Blackwater Draw Unesco Site on the border of Texas and New Mexico leads to an assessment of 13,000 years of change in one western environment, where people have practiced every kind of life way from hunting elephants to turning the plains into cotton fields and oil country. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
April 7 · 52 min
Ep. 24: Getting Over the Color Green and Learning to Love Badlands
In the 20th century peculiar landforms dismissed earlier in western history with the denigrating term “badlands” became compelling locations for scientists and artists in the West. First passed over as economically worthless, these barren, colorful landscapes were translated by painters like Georgia O’Keeffe into iconic imagery. Now many are national parks and wilderness areas. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
March 24 · 42 min
Ep. 23: Golden-Eyed Lightning Rod
For the first 50 years of the 20th century a new federal agency did everything in its power to disappear all wolves from the West and America. What saved the wolf was its own intelligence in the face of eradication, and the emergence of the new science of ecology, whose practitioners revealed the real animal within the legend. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
March 10 · 53 min
Ep. 22: New West, Modern West, Public Lands West
The Frontier and the freedom it afforded was the shaping influence of the 19th century American West, but life in the Modern West has been formed just as powerfully by the presence of a public lands system American visionaries established a century ago. This is why they did it. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
February 24 · 1 hr
Ep. 21: How You Create a New West, and a New America
Teddy Roosevelt enjoyed a lifestyle and political career that made him the most important president in history for the creation of a West and a country centered on conservation. In the process his obsession with nature finally took the U.S. in a different policy direction than the countries of western Europe we had tried for three centuries to emulate. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
February 10 · 53 min
Ep. 20: Coyote - America’s Jackal and Its Roller-Coaster Ride Through History
Like no other western animal the coyote has been a central character in the Pleistocene West, the Native West, and the Frontier. One of the epic stories of the Modern West is how coyotes are transferring their own brand of western survivalism to the entire country. Despite a $500 million-dollar war to exterminate them, the coyote is in fact The Dude, and The Dude absolutely abides. Thank you to our sponsor Velvet Buck. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, iHeart, Pandora, Amazon. MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Check out more MeatEater's American History audio originals "The Long Hunters" and "Mountain Men" Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
January 27 · 53 min

The American West

Ep. 39: The River That Flowed From Nowhere, Part II

Ep. 38: The River That Flowed From Nowhere, Part I

Ep. 37: The Wolf Returns to the West

Ep. 36: Down the West’s Grandest Canyon

Ep. 35: How the Endangered Species Act Saved the West and America

Ep. 34: Big Bend and the Deserts of the West

Ep. 33: Time and Time Again: The Fascinating Evidence from Western Repeat Photography

Ep. 32: Loving the Plains, Hating the Plains, Rewilding the Plains

Ep. 31: Cabeza de Vaca’s Fantastic Journey

Ep. 30: Jesus and Animus Beneath the Bitterroots

Ep. 29: What Were Charlie Russell and L.A. Huffman Trying to Tell Us?

Ep. 28: Understanding Nature in a Southwestern State

Ep. 27: Messages From the Past - The Rock Art of the American West

Ep. 26: Where the Primeval West Abides

Ep. 25: Thinking About Big History in One Western Place

Ep. 24: Getting Over the Color Green and Learning to Love Badlands

Ep. 23: Golden-Eyed Lightning Rod

Ep. 22: New West, Modern West, Public Lands West

Ep. 21: How You Create a New West, and a New America

Ep. 20: Coyote - America’s Jackal and Its Roller-Coaster Ride Through History