Aug 4, 2026 · 58 min · 15 segments
Heather Hansman is an award-winning outdoor journalist, an Outside columnist, and the author of Downriver and the bestselling Powder Days. Her new book, Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women…
Heather HansmanGuestZoe RomHost
Brendan LeonardHostIt's interesting 'cause it's sort of like this, it, it, uh, outdoor memoir heroine's journey, but also sort of woven into that are some even bigger ideas about the outdoor industry and women's place in it.
How did you become interested in this topic, having covered Western water, the sort of myth of the ski bum? Why turn your attention to these three women in particular, and why use that as sort of an on-ramp to these larger ideas?
Um, I feel like I don't have like a great origin story for this, which I should maybe have like figured out by now.
But I think in a lot of ways, this story has been cooking in my brain like since I was a teenager.
Um, I started work- I started raft guiding when I was 18, you know, like in college.
That became a really big part of like, obviously my work, my life, my relationships, my community, you know, how I show up in the world.
And I think the like big meta question in all this is like how to be a good person [chuckles] in that world, which is maybe like a little too woo-woo in all this.
But I think that like why are things important to me? How do we, as I get older too, like, and as how we think about public land and natural resources is really politically inflamed and vulnerable and changing right now.
I think I was really looking for like some framework for how to like show up in the world.
Um, and I kind of in digging into that and in peeling back some of the stuff that I was looking at in the other books too, I sort of realized that I didn't have any Roadmaps for how to do that, and like, for lack of a better word, heroes.
And at the same time, my, um, editor for my last book, we were kind of talking about new book ideas, and I had like pitched him a book of essays, and he was like, "That's not gonna go." [laughs] But we-
We can totally talk about it later, but I feel like there's always that, like, what is the market for books piece of it.
And he had kind of been like, "Hey, I was really interested in some of the women's stories in 'Powder Days.'" And one of the women, Dolores LaChapelle, who was one of the women I'm looking at, kind of showed up in 'Powder Days' in some ways.
And I immediately had this reaction where I was like, "I don't wanna write a girl book.
Like, don't, don't make me do that." And then I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." Like, what, what was that sort of like response in me?
It's interesting 'cause it's sort of like this, it, it, uh, outdoor memoir heroine's journey, but also sort of woven into that are some even bigger ideas about the outdoor industry and women's place in it.
How did you become interested in this topic, having covered Western water, the sort of myth of the ski bum? Why turn your attention to these three women in particular, and why use that as sort of an on-ramp to these larger ideas?
Um, I feel like I don't have like a great origin story for this, which I should maybe have like figured out by now.
But I think in a lot of ways, this story has been cooking in my brain like since I was a teenager.
Um, I started work- I started raft guiding when I was 18, you know, like in college.
That became a really big part of like, obviously my work, my life, my relationships, my community, you know, how I show up in the world.
And I think the like big meta question in all this is like how to be a good person [chuckles] in that world, which is maybe like a little too woo-woo in all this.
But I think that like why are things important to me? How do we, as I get older too, like, and as how we think about public land and natural resources is really politically inflamed and vulnerable and changing right now.
I think I was really looking for like some framework for how to like show up in the world.
Um, and I kind of in digging into that and in peeling back some of the stuff that I was looking at in the other books too, I sort of realized that I didn't have any Roadmaps for how to do that, and like, for lack of a better word, heroes.
And at the same time, my, um, editor for my last book, we were kind of talking about new book ideas, and I had like pitched him a book of essays, and he was like, "That's not gonna go." [laughs] But we-
We can totally talk about it later, but I feel like there's always that, like, what is the market for books piece of it.
And he had kind of been like, "Hey, I was really interested in some of the women's stories in 'Powder Days.'" And one of the women, Dolores LaChapelle, who was one of the women I'm looking at, kind of showed up in 'Powder Days' in some ways.
And I immediately had this reaction where I was like, "I don't wanna write a girl book.
Like, don't, don't make me do that." And then I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." Like, what, what was that sort of like response in me?
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