Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island

About this book

Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She eats road kill, wrestles alligators, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built herself in an island wilderness. She's had three husbands and many lovers, one of whom she shot and killed in self-defense. 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. Cumberland is the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island – over forty square miles of pristine wilderness celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses.

Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie owned much of Cumberland, and his widow Lucy made it a Gilded Age playground. But 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 tries to stop one of the wealthiest families in America? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.

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Biography

Will Harlan is the editor-in-chief of Blue Ridge Outdoors, the country's largest regional outdoor magazine. A top trail runner and a long-time journalist, his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Adventure, and elsewhere.