Anne LaBastille

Anne LaBastille (November 20, 1933 – July 1, 2011) was an American author, nature writer, ecologist, and photographer. The recipient of several awards and honorary doctorates, she was a state-certified Adirondack guide and an adjunct associate professor at Cornell University.

Quotes

• As I became more tuned into trees, I began to admire the enormous white pine near the path to the outhouse. I even oriented the entrance of the outhouse so that I could gaze at this tall, furrowed tree while sitting there. It was much better than reading Time magazine.
  • Woodswoman. Penguin Group (USA). 1978. p. 46. ISBN 9780525485650.  (277 pages)

• In spite of the obstacles a few female artists persisted and gave us some wonderful scenes depicting wilderness beauty, Indians, and primitive western life. Among these we might mention Grace Carpenter Hudson (1880's), Mary H. Foote (1800's), Mary Elizabeth Achey (1860–1885), and Eliza Barchus (1885–?).
  • Women and Wilderness. Sierra Club Books. 1980. pp. 71–72. ISBN 9780871562340.  (310 pages; 1st part of quote; last part of quote)

Assignment, Wildlife (1980)

• I developed from being a lister of birds and tropical fishes to an investigator of ecosystems, and as a natural outgrowth, becoming a conservationist and protector of wildlife and wildlands.
  • Assignment, Wildlife (1st ed.). Dutton. 1980. p. xii. ISBN 9780525059103. 

• … a golf course beside the sparkling Rio Bajo Chiquero? Not everyone agrees that a national park’s chief function is to conserve wildlands, species, ecosystems, and natural beauty, The possibilities made me cringe.
  • p. 115

• During my morning trek, two of the striking differences between tropical rain forest and temperate woodlands became evident. Any 5 acres around my cabin in the Adirondacks, or in New England woods, may have 10 to 12 kinds of trees growing; yet, here in the same-sized area, an average of 200 species can be found!
  • p. 179

Quotes about Anne LaBastille

• Dr Anne LaBastille was, in her words, a part-time hermit. She died 1 July 2011, and her last name calls to Bastille Day, a celebration of independence. A wildlife ecologist, writer and photographer, she built her own 12x12 cabin on Twitchell Lake after her divorce in 1964. She chronicled her life and research in more than a dozen books, including the Woodswoman series. ...
  Her work remains relatively unknown in the male-dominated nature writing landscape, but I believe a copy of Woodswoman belongs next to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden in a library. If you’re looking for a real declaration of independence, and a deeper social experiment, try a woman living alone in the Adirondacks for decades.
  • Megan Mayhew Bergman, (17 July 2019) "Adventuring while female: why the relationship women have with nature matters". The Guardian.

• Her reach as an environmentalist extended to Guatemala, where she had discovered the flightless bird known as the giant pied-billed grebe at Lake Atitlan while leading nature tours in 1960.
  When LaBastille returned five years later to study the rare bird, its population had declined by 50%. She wrote her doctoral dissertation for Cornell on the plight of the grebe, or “poc” as the bird was known locally, and spent 24 years campaigning to save it.
  She persuaded the Guatemalan government to make the grebe’s habitat a wildlife refuge, launched educational programs and wrote about the doomed bird in her 1990 book “Mama Poc,” the nickname local residents gave her.
  • Valerie J. Nelson, (July 10, 2011) "Anne LaBastille dies at 77; naturalist inspired women to explore outdoors". Los Angeles Times. (Valerie J. Nelson ascertained that Anne LaBastille was born in 1933 and not 1935.)

External links

• Media related to Anne LaBastille on Wikimedia Commons
• (May 25, 2022) "Ecologist and author Anne LaBastille shows us her home in the wilderness". Mountain Lake PBS, YouTube.
• Grondahl, Paul (August 22, 2011). Anne LaBastille: Remembering the legendary Woodswoman. Adirondack Explorer.