Heather Hansman — The Untold Stories of Three Fierce Women

**Heather Hansman** (0:01)
Covering stories of women in the outdoors, this is really tricky balance between, do you make it a big deal and say, look, they're women? Or do you normalize it and say, hey, these are some people who did some really cool things, and they also happen to be women? So that tension of how to write about women in a space, and I think in so many other spaces too, and how to tell stories where gender is a factor because of the soup that we all swim in, but isn't the main story, is this really tricky thing.

**Ed Roberson** (0:39)
This is the Mountain and Prairie Podcast. I'm Ed Roberson.
My guest today is Heather Hansman. Today marks Heather's third appearance on the podcast. And if you've been listening for a while, you know how much her work has shaped my understanding of the West. Heather's an award-winning journalist and the author of Downriver and Powder Days, two books I reference constantly. And she's back today to talk about her brand new book, Fierce Country, The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America's Love for the Wild, which hits shelves today, the same day this episode is released. Fierce Country tells the stories of three women who played important roles in shaping how we think about recreation and conservation today, yet whose stories have largely gone untold. Georgie White, one of the first Grand Canyon river guides, Anne LaBastille, an off-the-grid Adirondack guide and pioneering climate scientist, and Dolores LaChapelle, a legendary powder skier and environmental philosopher whose ideas helped launch the deep ecology movement. These are three complicated, larger-than-life characters, and Heather weaves their wild adventures together with her own personal story in a way that makes the book resonate no matter who you are.
As always with Heather's work, it introduced me to new ideas that I didn't even know I needed to be thinking about. Heather and I talked about how she chose these three women, and why their stories were left out of the history most of us learned. And we dug in to some of the big ideas woven throughout the book. The heroine's journey versus the hero's journey, the superwoman myth, and the surprising research on men and women in outdoor sports. We talk about the double standards that outdoors women face, especially as parents, and the culture of harassment that unfortunately still exists in the outdoor world.
We also chatted about Heather's recent investigative reporting on bots, gaming the Recreation.gov permit system, the importance of journalism and speaking truth to power, and how five years of living with these women's stories has changed the way Heather moves through the world. I love this conversation, and I can't recommend Fierce Country highly enough. The book is out today, so be sure to click through in the episode notes to grab a copy. But before we get started, I want to thank the people and organizations that make Mountain and Prairie possible. Mountain and Prairie is listener-supported via Patreon, which means that listeners like you can support the podcast and all of my various projects for as little as $2 a month. The podcast is also supported by a small number of values-aligned organizations on either a quarterly or annual basis.
A huge thank you to the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, the documentary Mirasol Looking at the Sun, Patagonia Books and the Rye Resurgence Project for their generous support. Since this episode features one of my favorite authors talking about an excellent book, I thought this would be a perfect time to say a little more about Patagonia Books.
Everyone listening to this episode is familiar with the company Patagonia, and you probably listened to my interview last year with Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard. But you may not know that Patagonia also publishes books, and over the years I featured many of their authors on this podcast.
There's so much overlap between the topics covered by Patagonia Books and the topics I discuss on this podcast. Adventure, conservation, purpose-driven work, outdoor athletics, fishing, philosophy, solving environmental challenges, and more. As you all know, I read a ton of books, and I can honestly say that every single book I've read from Patagonia has been top-notch. They've made me think, they're fun to read, they're beautifully produced, and I reference them and recommend them often, both on the podcast and in regular life. Since this episode with Heather is about three trailblazing women in the outdoor world, I want to recommend three women-focused books from Patagonia that I think you'll enjoy.
The first one is called Swell, A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening by Captain Liz Clark.
In her mid-twenties, Liz set sail from Santa Barbara on a 40-foot sailboat named Swell, and spent the better part of a decade sailing solo around the Pacific, chasing waves and living simply. The books part adventure story, part meditation on what it means to build a life around your values, and Liz's writing about self-reliance, fear and freedom will stick with you long after you finish it. The other two are from the legendary Audrey Sutherland, Paddling My Own Canoe and Paddling North.