Ecologist Anne LaBastille created the life that many people dream about. When she and her husband divorced, she needed a place to live. Through luck and perseverance, she found the ideal spot: a 20-acre parcel of land in the Adirondack mountains, where she built the cozy, primitive log cabin that became her permanent home. Miles from the nearest town, LaBastille had to depend on her wits, ingenuity, and the help of generous neighbors for her survival. In precise, poetic language, she chronicles her adventures on Black Bear Lake, capturing the power of the landscape, the rhythms of the changing seasons, and the beauty of nature’s many creatures. Most of all, she captures the struggle to balance her need for companionship and love with her desire for independence and solitude. Woodswoman is not simply a book about living in the wilderness, it is a book about living that contains a lesson for us all.

In 1976, Anne LaBastille, a young ecologist built her own log cabin at the edge of wilderness in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. She has lived there without electricity or a road for 30 years. Her first book, WOODSWOMAN, related encounters with wildlife, weather, & local folk over ten years. The sequel, BEYOND BLACK BEAR LAKE, described her building a new retreat for writing, "Thoreau II," closer to the wilderness. WOODSWOMAN III tells how Anne & her German shepherds encounter a perilous tornado, the joys of guiding, the sad passing of her noble dog, Condor, new environmental controversies & terrorism, the haunting beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, & the challenge of becoming an older woodswoman. She offers a strong inspirational message to women over 50 to become "fierce eco-feminists" & save our planet. In this third decade, Anne's writing is delightfully spunky & sensitive. WOODSWOMAN III is dynamite! Available May 1997 from West of the Wind Publications, Inc., R.D. 2, Westport, NY 12993. Phone & FAX: 518-962-8295. ISBN 0-9632846-1-4. $15.00. 256pp. (Orig.), Trade Paper.

Wildlife ecologist Anne LaBastille is a pioneer in the growing movement of women into wilderness-oriented careers. In this groundbreaking book, she documents this phenomenon, profiling fifteen remarkable women ranging in age from twenty-one to seventy whose lives and professions center on the outdoors. Some are field scientists or hold technical jobs--a zoologist, a speleologist (cave explorer), a builder of log houses--others have forged unique, self-reliant lifestyles in wilderness homesteads. These women, LaBastille herself among them, constitute a new and important category of role models for young women. LaBastille also looks at the complex web of social and psychosexual factors that have alienated women from wilderness in the past and shows how feminism and the rise of environmental consciousness have allowed the "wilderness within women" to emerge. Updated with a new Afterword for this edition, Women and Wilderness offers exciting career ideas and inspiration for women everywhere.

After her bestselling book, Woodswoman, Anne LaBastille retreated even farther into the wilderness and built a tiny cabin fashioned after Thoreau's Walden. Her renewed bond with nature makes for another "eloquent, witty, and inspirational volume".--Booklist.

Find out how the world's tallest mammal uses its height to find food, stay safe, and even help other animals escape from enemies.

Jaguar Totem is the riveting account of Anne LaBastille's "other life" & the exciting counterpoint to the WOODSWOMAN Trilogy. From her log cabin at the edge of wilderness, Anne LaBastille fares out on fast-paced ecological consultancies which include teeming wildlife, dazzling land - & seascapes, world renowned scientists, glamorous conferences & daring field trips. Climb with Anne into magnificent cloud forests on Volcano Atitlan in Guatemala to establish a Quetzal Reserve. Camp on the beautiful beaches of remote Anegada Island in the Caribbean as she mist-nets birds & bats new to the area. Run rapids by dugout canoe in the Darien jungle of Panama where Anne meets a wondrous young female jaguar, "Mancha," while on a National Geographic assignment. Zodiak over the stormy North Atlantic to photograph huge gannet colonies off St. Kilda, Scotland. Jaguar Totem rivals anything in the WOODSWOMAN Trilogy. It tells of life intensely lived -- of life as vibrant as this book's cover. It reinforces Dr. LaBastille's strong belief that wildlands & wildlife everywhere need constant, compassionate care. Available from West of the Wind Publications, Inc., R.D. 2, Westport, NY 12993. Phone & FAX: 518-962-8295.

Samuel de Champlain has long been known as the founder of Quebec and as a tireless explorer. No one knows for sure where he was born or who he really was. Still, his career was packed with interesting details and his early life prepared him for greatness. Without Champlains own detailed records, the years 1600 to 1640 in Canada would be almost a mystery. Possibly Canadas first multicultural advocate, he dreamed of creating a new people from French and Aboriginal roots. However, his efforts to establish a colony encountered setbacks in France. Among his detractors was the powerful Cardinal Richelieu. Champlain was not of the nobility and thus was considered unfit for patronage. The explorers story is an exciting one, as he explored new territory, established alliances and understandings with Natives, waged war when necessary, and left behind a legend in the New World that lasts to this day.