THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE.

take a dang women’s history class. Nope, I have never even done that!!

:P bad me

”...Murie [was] born in 1902….[and] was the first woman graduate of the new University of Alaska[.] She [& husband biologist Olauf Murie] honeymooned in Alaska’s backcountry….[The couple] went on to play important roles in the founding and leadership of the Wilderness Society.

from Two in the Far North:

“We had a load of five hundred pounds with only seven dogs, and a fourteen-foot sled to manage. The mailman was required to carry no more than two hundred pounds of mail on this route. Even at that, I will still swear that all Alaskan mail carriers of that era were heroes. ...

“On our fourth day south we caught up with a part of that same caribou herd which on its southward migration had caused such excitement in Wiseman. We were bumping along down a rough slope full of those tussocks again, when old Wolf’s ears pricked up and Mayuk, his partner, gave a yelp and in a flash they were all off on a mad run. Over on the next slope we saw twelve or fifteen buff-brown caribou, and on slopes further off, more and more. One small band was feeding along close to the trail ahead, and the Victoria Land hunters were straining every muscle to reach them. There was nothing we could do but hang on to the sled….

“So short are the days becoming that the fiery glory of the red sunrise seems almost to merge into the delicate rosy saffron glow of sunset, so that we travel across a colorful stage setting….

“Then very soon the sky is midnight blue and fully spangled with stars, and the moon is rising brighter and brighter behind the pointed trees. In the north a flicker of green and yellow; then an unfurled bolt of rainbow ribbon shivering and shimmering across the stars – the Aurora. The dogs begin to speed up; we must be nearing a cabin; yes, there it is, a little black blotch on the creek bank. The air is cold and tingling, fingers are numb. A great dark form flops slowly across the trail – a great horned owl, the speaking spirit of the wilderness.”

“To live and work in this kind of open country, with its hundred-mile views, is to lose the distinction between background and foreground. When I asked an older ranch hand to describe Wyoming’s openness, he said, ‘It’s all a bunch of nothing – wind and rattlesnakes – and so much of it you can’t tell where you’re going or where you’ve been and it don’t make much difference.’ ...The huge ranch he was born on takes up much of one county and spreads into another state; to put 100,000 miles on his pickup in three years and never leave home is not unusual. ...

“Seventy-five years ago, when travel was by buckboard or horseback, cowboys who were temporarily out of work rode the grub line – drifting from ranch to ranch, mending fences or milking cows, and receiving in exchange a bed and meals. Gossip and messages traveled this slow circuit with them, creating an intimacy between ranchers who were three and four weeks’ ride apart. One old-time couple I know, whose turn-of-the-century homestead was used by an outlaw gang as a relay station for stolen horses, recall that if you were traveling, desperado or not, any lighted ranch house was a welcome sign. Even now, for someone who lives in a remote spot, arriving at a ranch or coming to town for supplies is cause for celebration. To emerge from isolation can be disorienting. Everything looks bright, new, vivid. After I had been herding sheep for only three days, the sound of the camp tender’s pickup flustered me. Longing for human company, I felt a foolish grin take over my face; yet I had to resist an urgent temptation to run and hide.”

The death in Syria of war correspondent Marie Colvin is front-page news, so I don’t feel I can add anything.

“The night sky above my apartment is filled with so many connect-the-dot mythological creatures and heavenly bodies that I cannot help but feel closer to the source of all life. The human urge to name, to categorize, to sort and explain falls away, and I gaze upward with a primitive awe. ...Our humanity and womanhood are grounded in and amplified by our contact with wilderness. Those of us who keep field journals, however elaborate or simple, have found that these notebooks start the dark alchemy in which fact, sweat, and fond memory ferment and develop into a psychic perfume….”

“Our relationship as mother and daughter has evolved from a wander across an Arkansas field when she was a little girl, to hours spent leaning over a tidal pool in Baja California, to long treks lugging backpacks through high altitude fellfields just months ago….I inherited my wilderness genes from my daughter. It was she who first did wilderness camping, it was she who first went into the wilderness of Utah and came back beaming, it was she who drove alone to Alaska. From her experience and sturdy outlook I have taken courage and encouragement, both words from the Middle English root meaning “heart.” (Ann Zwinger)

”...Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop ...won London’s Olivier Award for Best Play last year and opens on Broadway this month in a production starring Samuel L. Jackson [as]...Martin Luther King Jr. (...)

“Interviewer: It’s surprising that such an American story would premiere in London.

Hall: It was very scary. Would this audience have resonance with the material? But they absolutely did. Opening night, the audience was so diverse, it was a church of King’s dreams. And they didn’t have the knee-jerk reaction they might have here [in the U.S.]. There, kings are meant to be deconstructed.”

a very random list of the not-at-all-random

_{I don’t know if I’ve even spelled her name correctly & I’m not looking it up right now or I’ll be on here all day}

It has the distinction of recording the randomness with which I go about certain types of research.

_{by the way, thank you, Starstuff !! I owe you a message : )}

Anyway, current addition to the list:

RUTH DYAR MENDENHALL

Eileen Collins, first female Shuttle pilot

Women Astronauts

Women@NASA

Finally saw (part of) the movie. Great story.

More when I actually have time….