Journalist Heather Hansman, author of Downriver and Powder Days, discusses her new book Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild, which profiles Grand Canyon river guide Georgie White, Adirondack wilderness biologist Anne LaBastille, and backcountry ski philosopher Dolores La Chapelle. Hansman explains why she chose these three specific women rather than writing a broad survey, framing White as the “what” of outdoor recreation, LaBastille as the “how” of conservation science, and La Chapelle as the “why” behind deep ecology. She is candid about each woman’s flaws and blind spots, including their complicated relationships with other women in the field, arguing that sanitizing their stories into hero myths would repeat the same erasure she is trying to correct. The conversation also covers the retreat of climate and environmental journalism, including Scientific American’s ownership sale, and Hansman’s own reporting on inequities in the Recreation.gov permitting system.

Nostalgia for how things used to be can be comforting but also keeps people from confronting how public land access, and who gets to shape its story, actually works today

Heather Hansman has spent her career writing about the parts of the American West that don’t resolve neatly: whitewater, snowpack, water rights, and now, the people who are usually left out of conservation’s origin story. In this conversation, the journalist and author of Downriver and Powder Days talks with Bill and Anders about her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild, which traces the lives of Georgie White, Anne LaBastille, and Dolores La Chapelle, three women whose work shaped how Americans recreate in and protect wild places, but whose names rarely appear alongside Thoreau, Muir, or Abbey.

Hansman explains why she resisted the idea of writing “a girl book,” and why she ultimately narrowed her focus to just these three women rather than a broader survey. Georgie White, one of the first commercial Grand Canyon river guides, opened the canyon to thousands of people and helped shape the permitting systems that govern it today. Anne LaBastille, a wilderness guide and biologist who lived off-grid in the Adirondacks, helped build the scientific case for the Clean Air Act while running a guiding business. Dolores La Chapelle, a pioneering backcountry skier who later settled in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, became one of the founding voices of the deep ecology movement. Hansman is direct about each woman’s contradictions, including behavior toward other women in the field that she doesn’t excuse, arguing that presenting them as flawless heroes would be its own kind of dishonesty.

The conversation widens into Hansman’s broader beat: the shrinking landscape of environmental journalism, including the recent sale of Scientific American, and her own reporting for RE:PUBLIC on inequities in the Recreation.gov permitting system that governs access to rivers and public land. Throughout, she returns to a consistent thread: that nostalgia for how things used to be, whether for a decommissioned lighthouse or a mythologized cowboy West, can be comforting but also keep people from confronting how public land access, and who gets to shape its story, actually works today.

In this episode:

• Why Heather Hansman wrote Fierce Country — Hansman explains her initial resistance to the project and how she landed on Georgie White, Anne LaBastille, and Dolores La Chapelle as the “what,” “how,” and “why” of modern outdoor recreation and conservation.
• Georgie White and the Grand Canyon — One of the first commercial Grand Canyon river guides, White brought more people down the canyon than anyone in her era and helped shape the permitting systems still used today.
• Anne LaBastille’s off-grid science — A wilderness guide who lived alone in a cabin she built in the Adirondacks, LaBastille was also a biologist whose air pollution monitoring contributed to the case for the Clean Air Act.
• Dolores La Chapelle and deep ecology — A pioneering backcountry skier and early avalanche educator, La Chapelle became a founding thinker of the deep ecology movement from her home in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
• Writing imperfect heroes — Hansman discusses why she chose not to sanitize the three women’s flaws and conflicts with other women, and what that choice means for how conservation history gets told.
• The essay “Lighthouse for Sale” — Hansman revisits her essay about a decommissioned Massachusetts lighthouse and the nostalgia that keeps people attached to obsolete places and stories.
• Water in the West, ten years later — Hansman reflects on how conditions on the Colorado River system, including levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, have worsened since she reported Downriver in 2016.
• The state of environmental journalism — Hansman discusses shrinking climate and environmental coverage at outlets like Scientific American, and her own reporting for RE:PUBLIC on inequities in the Recreation.gov permitting system.

Links & Resources

Connect with Heather

• Website: https://heatherhansman.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hhansman/

Media & Books:

• Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild — Heather Hansman’s new book, profiling Georgie White, Anne LaBastille, and Dolores La Chapelle. 
• Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West — Hansman’s 2019 book documenting a solo raft trip down the Green River and the water politics of the American West. 
• Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns, and the Future of Chasing Snow — Hansman’s 2021 book on ski culture, resort economics, and climate change’s threat to the ski industry. 
• Deep Powder Snow: Forty Years of Ecstatic Skiing, Avalanches, and Earth Wisdom — Dolores La Chapelle’s 1993 book applying deep ecology philosophy to backcountry skiing, referenced in the episode as a cult classic among skiers. 
• “Lighthouse for Sale” — Hansman’s essay on a decommissioned Massachusetts lighthouse, nostalgia, and public land, discussed at length in the episode. 
• “Wreck Dot Gov” — Hansman’s RE:PUBLIC investigation, co-published with WIRED, into bots and inequity in the Recreation.gov permitting system. 

Organizations & Initiatives:

• RE:PUBLIC — A public lands-focused newsroom where Hansman published her reporting on Recreation.gov; previously featured on The Wild Idea (EP29, Chris Keyes).
• The Daily Yonder — A national rural news publication Hansman references as an example of independent journalism covering underserved beats. 

Places & Landscapes:

• Grand Canyon — Where Georgie White ran some of the first commercial rubber-raft trips and shaped early river permitting. 
• Adirondack Park — Where Anne LaBastille lived off-grid and conducted decades of wildlife and air-quality research. 
• San Juan Mountains, Colorado — Where Dolores La Chapelle settled later in life, and where Heather Hansman lives today. 

Government & Policy:

• Clean Air Act — Federal law Anne LaBastille’s early air pollution monitoring is credited with helping to support.

People Mentioned:

• Georgie White — Pioneering Grand Canyon river guide and one of the three women profiled in Fierce Country. 
• Anne LaBastille — Wilderness guide, ecologist, and author who lived off-grid in the Adirondacks; one of the three women profiled in Fierce Country.
• Dolores La Chapelle — Backcountry ski pioneer and deep ecology philosopher; one of the three women profiled in Fierce Country. 
• Karen Warren — Feminist scholar Hansman consulted while reporting Fierce Country, referenced for her perspective on the three women’s complicated legacies.
• Dillon Osleger — Author of Trail Work, referenced in the episode’s opening discussion of maps and history. Catch our conversation with Dillon in Episode 66.

Heather Hansman is the bestselling, award-winning author of FIERCE COUNTRY, POWDER DAYS and DOWNRIVER. A longtime freelance writer, her work has appeared in place like The New York Times, The Atlantic, Outside and High Country News, among others. She lives in Durango, Colorado.

Learn more about opportunities to sponsor The Wild Idea.

Follow along for updates, upcoming conversations, and live events, and share this episode with someone who cares about wild places, working lands, and the future of our food system. You can also support the show through our Buy Me a Coffee page. 

Subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast player, and be sure to follow us on social media, too: we’re on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

We also send out a weekly newsletter with updates on our show: sign up for that list right here.