Fierce Country

For readers of Susan Casey and Rinker Buck, the inspiring, untold story of three incredible women who pioneered the outdoor movement in America

In the spring of 1945, when even the most courageous outdoor enthusiasts had yet to see the depths of the Grand Canyon, Georgie White jumped into the river at Diamond Creek with just a lifejacket and a backpack full of food. Shortly thereafter, she became the first woman to row the Grand Canyon. At the same time, she also exclusively wore leopard print leotards and subsisted only on canned tuna and beer.

While Georgie was running the river, Anne LaBastille was building her life in the Adirondacks. She would go on to become a celebrate author, ecologist and an emblem of the back to the land movement.

And in the Rockies, Dolores LaChapelle, was burnishing her name as one of the best skiers in America. She was climbing and skiing first descents before National Geographic and Warren Miller created an entire industry around such feats.

In Fierce Country, outdoor journalist and celebrated author of Powder Days, Heather Hansman brings these women’s fascinating lives to the forefront of the outdoor movement, affirming the rightful place in the larger story of an evolving American landscape.

Author Biography

HEATHER HANSMAN is an award-winning freelance writer and a former editor at both Powder and Skiing magazines. She’s Outside magazine’s environmental columnist and a contributing editor at Backcountry Magazine. Her work has been included in The Best American Essays 2015. She once won a bag of pasta in an Italian big-mountain-skiing contest (tenth place out of eleven women). She lives in Seattle, Washington.