Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Untamed by Will Harlan - Available

Untamed

The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island

by Will Harlan
ebook
1 of 2 copies available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 2 copies available
The inspiring biography of the adventuresome naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel and her crusade to save her island home from environmental disaster.
 
In a “moving homage . . . that artfully articulates the ferocities of nature and humanity,” biographer Will Harlan captures the larger-than-life story of biologist, naturalist, and ecological activist Carol Ruckdeschel, known to many as the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia (Kirkus Reviews).
 
Cumberland, the country’s largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island’s future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high school diploma becomes an outspoken advocate on a celebrated but divisive island? Untamed is the story of an American original who fights for what she believes in, no matter the cost, “an environmental classic that belongs on the shelf alongside Carson, Leopold, Muir, and Thoreau” (Thomas Rain Crowe, author of Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods).
 
“Vivid. . . . Ms. Ruckdeschel’s biography, and the way this wandering soul came to settle for so many decades on Cumberland Island, is big enough on its own, but Mr. Harlan hints at bigger questions.” —The Wall Street Journal
 
“Wild country produces wild people, who sometimes are just what’s needed to keep that wild cycle going. This is a memorable portrait.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
 
“Deliciously engrossing. . . . Readers are in for a wild ride.” —The Citizen-Times

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 6, 2014

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780802192622

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780802192622
      • File size: 3373 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      May 1, 2014
      Blue Ridge Outdoors editor in chief Harlan intimately and expansively profiles a fearless Southern island dweller.A small, bridgeless barrier island off the Georgia coast, Cumberland is home to countless endangered species and three major ecosystem regions. It is also home to Carol Ruckdeschel, a self-taught biologist who has integrated herself into the lush landscape and lived off the land for much of her adult life. Harlan met this intrepid "Jane Goodall of sea turtles" while he was a park ranger and shadowed her for two decades, impeccably documenting in field notes and journals her ramshackle cabin life of "packrat practicality." Ruckdeschel was a rowdy only child born during the early stages of World War II, a solitary, curious tomboy who skipped church to commune with feral cats and turtles while her father taught her to shoot rifles and appreciate liquor. Her interest in the biological world bled into young adulthood; she was obsessed with dissecting animal carcasses as she taught herself outdoor skills and drank, which expelled her from college. Undeterred, Ruckdeschel immersed herself in natural history studies and married the first of her three husbands, all of whom she would divorce. Perhaps to soothe a broken heart, Harlan presumes, she retreated for the marshes and mountains of Cumberland, where she has resided as an increasingly feral inhabitant ever since. Her grass-roots activism has kept her spirited love of the island and its wild inhabitants sustained as she forcefully combats developers thirsty to capitalize on the land's natural resources and sweeping vistas. Harlan's painstaking detailing of the island's history includes the legacy of the Carnegie family and the ruins of their antebellum plantation houses and mansions. Ruckdeschel's extremist legacy and tireless wilderness preservation campaigns are sweepingly recorded here in arresting detail.A moving homage and an adventure story that artfully articulates the ferocities of nature and humanity.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading