# Heather Hansman: Fierce Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-wild-idea-7248762/heather-hansman-fierce-women-who-ignited-america-s-love-for-the-wild
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-wild-idea-7248762/heather-hansman-fierce-women-who-ignited-america-s-love-for-the-wild.md
Podcast: [The Wild Idea](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-wild-idea-7248762)
Published: 2026-07-14T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://thewildidea.com/episode-69
Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/f7a86451/d9860b55.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-wild-idea-7248762/episodes/heather-hansman-fierce-women-who-ignited-america-s-love-for-the-wild
Duration seconds: 2515

## Resource

For decades, the story of American conservation has been told almost entirely through male protagonists: Thoreau, Muir, Abbey. Journalist and author Heather Hansman joins The Wild Idea to make the case for three women who belong in that story too. Her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild , profiles Georgie White, one of the first commercial Grand Canyon river guides; Anne LaBastille, an off-grid Adirondack biologist whose research helped support the Clean Air Act; and Dolores La Chapelle, a backcountry ski pioneer who became a founding voice of the deep ecology movement. Hansman talks with Bill and Anders about why she refused to smooth over each woman's flaws and rivalries, what it means to write "a girl book" without being boxed in by it, and how the same nostalgia that keeps people attached to old maps and decommissioned lighthouses shapes public land policy today. The conversation also touches on the shrinking landscape of environmental journalism and Hansman's own reporting on inequities in the federal Recreation.gov permitting system. Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com .

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## Transcript

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