Looking towards the log folk buildings of the Mountain West, from New Mexico to Alaska, this volume explains why the West is the "West". Arguing that its artifacts such as dwellings, barns and fences can, if correctly interpreted, reveal much about the origins and character of the regional culture, the authors set forth not only a description and analysis of Western folk architecture but also a systematic explanation of the culture of the West. The "West", the authors conclude, "is at once indigenous and imported, innovative and ultra-conservative, Anglo-American and ethnic, unitary and plural". Westerners tinkered, invented, modified and diversified. No single adaptive strategy brought to the West worked flawlessly in the new habitat. By extensive field investigation of still-extant folkhouses, fences, barns, hay derricks and cabins - all elements of material culture - they explain what the land tells us about the West.