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

Untamed is a biography of Carol Ruckdeschel, a naturalist and ecological activist known as the wildest woman in America. Will Harlan chronicles her life and her efforts to protect Cumberland Island, a barrier island off the Georgia coast, from environmental damage. Ruckdeschel is a self-taught scientist who lives in a hand-built cabin on the island's wilderness. She wrestles alligators, rides horses bareback, and has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park. The island is the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, known for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Cumberland Island has been a point of conflict. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the land, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Ruckdeschel over the island's future. The biography explores how a high school-educated naturalist became an outspoken advocate on this celebrated but divisive island, fighting for her beliefs regardless of the personal cost.