Smithsonian Magazine

The Teahouses at the Top of the World

Trek to the summit of one of Nepal’s peaks and find welcome pockets of respite along the way in the form of a warm cup of tea and human connection

Gimme Shelter

A sprawling animal sanctuary tucked in the canyons of Utah has built its reputation on saving every pet that ends up in its care. But the goal is to take its unequivocal no-kill philosophy to every shelter in the country

AT , ARTIST SARA FLORES BRANCHES OUT

CAPTURING CAPE COD’S CRIMSON CROPS

WHERE HAVE ALL THE REDFISH GONE?

The Bittersweet Beginnings of Vanilla

Our correspondent travels to the remote French island of Réunion to visit the plantation where an enslaved youth’s ingenious technique forever changed the way the exotic spice was cultivated

ROME’S UNDERGROUND WONDERS THE RADICAL ART OF HILMA AF KLINT

A Whale of a Find

Scientists recently made a huge discovery in the Gulf of Mexico: a new species of cetacean. But with only 50 left in the wild, can the creature get the help it needs to survive?

What Scotland’s Old Stones Know

Structures found at a dig in Orkney offer a hint at the lives of the Neolithic people who built them

The Forgotten Colony

On Smith’s Island in Bermuda, an archaeologist believes he’s unearthed the long-lost remnants of one of the earliest English towns in the New World—a settlement founded shortly after Jamestown and before Plymouth

The Living Memory of Blue Water

In 1855, a U.S. Army attack devastated a Lakota community in present-day Nebraska. How recovering the history of a littleknown massacre is bringing healing to a generational tragedy

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR’S AUSTRALIAN ODYSSEY

Following the trail of the controversial general as he his plotted dramatic World War II comeback

CAN A $34 BILLION STORM BARRIER PROTECT TEXAS?