Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson

Miriam Horn is an award-winning journalist and author whose work lives at the intersection of conservation, food production, and the people working—often quietly and pragmatically—to hold those worlds together. Many listeners will recognize her from her excellent book "Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman," a title that's come up repeatedly on this podcast for its nuanced look at how working lands and conservation can co...

Meriwether Hardie has built a life around long, ambitious horseback journeys through remote landscapes, and she uses those adventures as a way to better understand land, food, and the people who depend on both. In her early twenties, she rode for a year through South America, and this past summer, she spent five months traveling solo across the American West with two horses and a dog. Along the way, she's not j...

Jazmine Ulloa is a national reporter who covers immigration for The New York Times and is the author of the new book "El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory." It's a sweeping, deeply researched look at one of the most overlooked regions in the American West. Born and raised in El Paso, Jazmine brings both a journalist's discipline and a personal connection to the stor...

Pete McBride is a photographer, filmmaker, and author whose work has taken him all over the world, but at the center of it all is a river much closer to home: the Colorado River. He's been a frequent guest on this podcast over the years, and his work has consistently offered one of the most thoughtful and visually compelling perspectives on the landscapes and water systems that define the American West. His lat...

Sebastian Junger is an award-winning journalist, a New York Times bestselling author, and an Academy Award–nominated filmmaker. Regular listeners are surely familiar with his work, as I've mentioned his books a ridiculous number of times on this podcast over the years—especially his book "Tribe," which has had a lasting influence on how I think about community, purpose, and the kinds of experiences that give pe...

Darcy Chenoweth is a Montana-based Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner whose career sits at the intersection of medicine, trauma recovery, and the outdoor world. Darcy works with individuals and organizations—especially those in high-stress helping professions such as first responders, healthcare workers, and other frontline roles—to address burnout, trauma exposure, and the long-term impacts of stress...

Mark Kenyon is no stranger to Mountain & Prairie listeners—he's the author of "That Wild Country," host of the Wired to Hunt podcast, and the newly minted Director of Conservation at MeatEater. He's also one of the most voracious readers I know.

Every few years, Mark and I record a special episode where we discuss our top 10 favorite books in a particular category. The first one was our top...

Stella Maria Baer is a Santa Fe–based painter whose work is deeply rooted in land, light, and place. Known for her luminous depictions of moons, desert skies, horses, and wide-open Southwestern landscapes, Stella often makes her own pigments by hand—grinding rocks, dirt, and minerals into paint that quite literally contains the places she portrays. In addition to her studio practice, she teaches intimate worksh...

Today's conversation is a joint episode between Mountain & Prairie and The River Radius podcast. I'm joined by Sam Carter, the creator and host of The River Radius.

If you're not already familiar with The River Radius, I give it my highest endorsement. It's the most thoughtful and well-crafted show out there about rivers, water, and the people connected to them. Sam has built something genu...

My guest today is Kelsey Morris, and this is her second time on the podcast—which feels long-overdue, because a lot has happened since we last talked.

When Kelsey first joined me nearly five years ago, she was balancing a full-time job while building her art career on the side. Shortly after that conversation, she did something many creative people dream about and very few actually do: she ...

Jason Gardner is a retired Navy SEAL who now works as a top-level leadership instructor with Echelon Front. Over his thirty-year career in the SEAL teams, he served in combat operations in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, later becoming Command Master Chief of SEAL Team Five and Training Detachment. Since retiring from the Navy, Jason has worked with hundreds of organizations as a leadership instructor and strat...

Todd Ulizio is the co-owner of Two Bear Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Whitefish, Montana, that's quietly become a cornerstone of the Flathead Valley's local food community. Alongside his wife Rebecca, Todd has spent nearly two decades growing food, building soil, and figuring out how to make a small, values-driven farm work in a world that doesn't always make it easy.

Todd's path to fa...

Sammy Matsaw Jr. is the Director of the Columbia Basin Program at The Nature Conservancy, where he works at the intersection of salmon recovery, tribal sovereignty, and large-scale river restoration across one of the most complex watersheds in North America. In this role, Sammy helps guide conservation strategies that span state lines, political boundaries, and cultural histories—while keeping people, relations...

Today's episode is a bit of a departure from the usual format.

I'm re-sharing a recent conversation I had on my friend Brendan Leonard's new podcast, My Favorite Things. I'm sure most of y'all are already familiar with Brendan's work, but for those of you who aren't, he's an author, illustrator, filmmaker, and creator of Semi-Rad. 

Brendan's new podcast is built around ...

Mike Schaedel is the Western Montana Forest Restoration Director for The Nature Conservancy, where he leads some of the most ambitious and collaborative forest restoration work happening anywhere in the West. Based in Missoula, Mike works at the intersection of science, community partnerships, and land stewardship—helping restore fire-adapted forests, reduce wildfire risk, and improve the health and resilience ...

This month marks ten full years of my bimonthly book-recommendations project—a decade of weird little paragraphs about the books that grab my scattered attention. Whether you've been here since the beginning or signed up five minutes ago, thank you. I'm still baffled anyone reads these things, but I'm grateful all the same.

To mark the occasion, I recorded a late-night solo episode from The...

Devon O'Neil is a journalist, author, and longtime friend of mine whose new book "The Way Out: A True Story of Survival in the Heart of the Rockies" is one of the best pieces of outdoor nonfiction I've read in years. The book tells the harrowing true story of a backcountry ski trip near Leadville, Colorado, that turned tragic—and the years-long process of understanding what really happened, and how a mountain t...

Carli Kierstead is the Forest Program Director for The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming, where she leads efforts to understand and restore some of the West's most critical—and often overlooked—ecosystems. From beetle kill and wildfire to drought, Wyoming's forests face a range of challenges that ripple far beyond the state's borders. These high-country forests are the headwaters of several major river basins, prov...

Bex Frucht is a force of nature—a storyteller and community builder whose work blends performance, land, and small-town life in the American West. Based in Livingston, Montana, she's the founder of TMI Live, a storytelling series that celebrates vulnerability, humor, and human connection, and for the past three years, she's been the "vibe steward" of the Old Salt Festival, where her talent for bringing people t...