Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

ere is a myth-shattering look at the women who helped to settle the West, told through their own words and illustrated with 150 period photographs. Through diaries, memoirs, letters, and journals, "Women of the West" introduces 11 real frontier women whose words combine to recreate a place and time when resourcefulness and courage were demanded of everyone. 146 photos.

Mardy Murie writes about growing up in Fairbanks, becoming the first woman graduate of the University of Alaska, and marrying noted biologist Olaus J. Murie. So begins her lifelong journey in Alaska and on to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where along with her husband and others, they founded The Wilderness Society. Mardy's work as one of the earliest female voices for the wilderness movement earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.