Once in a blue moon, a book captures what we love and consider most important in our lives. Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild by Heather Hansman is that book and much more. Fierce Country shares the adventures of three twentieth century women who shaped the recreation industry and ethical conservation through their time in the Grand Canyon, the Adirondacks, and in Colorado. Following their journeys and the obstacles they encountered would be enough to make a captivating historical rendering, but Hansman ups the ante by making the book strike the reader personally through her insights and piercing prose.
Like so many, I find peace, joy, and a sense of true groundedness in a place where I feel most at home and most myself. Until now, no single writer has ever so completely shared that spiritual connection to place that makes me feel most authentically myself. When writing of Anne LaBastille’s life alone in the Adirondack woods, Hansman invokes the work of Virginia Thomas, a solitude researcher, who notes: “Research has shown that we’re least likely to feel lonely, and more likely to feel spiritually connected, when we’re alone in nature, compared to being at home by ourselves or alone in a public place.” Hansman writes, “That connection was what compelled Anne the most. There’s a Welsh word, hiraeth, that loosely means a desire for a landscape that feels like it should be yours. One tradition calls it a longing to be where your spirit lives. Similar ideas show up in different cultures, too. Anne said that going to the cabin felt like going home.”
Hansman explores our deep need for a relationship with wilderness and thus our desire to protect our environment through the lives and adventures of three very different women and the places they valued at a time when their being women made them outliers whose contributions were dismissed and denigrated. Hansman shares their weaknesses and their strengths. Georgie White was a mid-century daredevil who endangered the lives of many she guided through the rapids of the Grand Canyon. Dolores LaChapelle's championing of back country powder skiing in then remote and unknown Silverton, Colorado may have undermined her desire to support environmental philosophy. And Anne LaBastille’s fame interfered with the goals of her off-the-grid cabin in a remote area of the Adirondacks. Underpinning the three sections about each of these unique women is Hansman’s own journey to understanding Arne Ness and his development of deep ecology, the tenet “that humans are just one part of a wild, interconnected system and that any separation between humanity and the world around us is a false dualism.”
Hansman shows us why the outdoors matters with crisp word pictures that immerse us in the backcountry places she visits as seen in this vignette describing a time she skied while researching Dolores’s work. “I ask the slope if it’s ready, like Dolores did. Then I tip over. The snow feels like smooth ball bearings, a texture that comes from the warm granularity of spring, frozen and rewarmed. The feel is familiar, but today the surface formed hollow and bright and something in the snow crystals sparkles like a dense carpet of sparks. I’m dropping through a meadow of sequins, every crystal catching the light. My turns swish with a metallic crispiness, and everything feels smooth.”
Summing it Up: Read Fierce Country to gain an appreciation for why we love and value the natural world and to be a part of the sometimes dangerous and always exciting lives of three pioneering women who helped open the wild places of America. Savor Hansman’s word pictures that make you feel like you’re “dropping through a meadow of sequins, every crystal catching the light.” If you loved Pam Houston’s Deep Creek, this will resonate with you.
Note: Hansman will be a presenter at the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book this September. https://www.hsfotb.org/ Registration is waitlist only, but some sessions are free and open to the public.
Rating: 5 Stars
Publication Date: July 14, 2026
Categories: Gourmet, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Soul Food, Super Nutrition, Book Club
Read an Excerpt: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/fierce-country-heather-hansman
Author Website: https://heatherhansman.com/about/
What Others Are Saying:
BookPage: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/fierce-country-heather-hansman-book-review/
Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781335013439
"Three women who made significant contributions to the appreciation and protection of nature in the U.S. are explored with wit and verve in this fascinating mix of biography and memoir. ... With her clear-eyed view of her subjects and flinty prose, Hansman offers a new twist on American adventure and conservation. This shrewd and complex group portrait should not be missed." —Booklist (starred review)
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