Doniga Markagard - Wolf Girl

Wolf Girl is much more than a coming-of-age story. It is an inspiring story of how one can overcome adversity, connect with nature, pursue their passion, follow synchronicity and discover a life filled with purpose and meaning. As a father of two teen girls, I believe these are the types of stories that are essential for our young people to read. Doniga is an amazing role model whose story will give teens hope and inspire them to become the next generation of nature-connected leaders and stewards that our world desperately needs.

Warren Moon, Executive Director, Wilderness Awareness School

With prose good enough to be called poetry, she brings us on a deeply moving and profound journey of awakening and awareness.

Joel Salatin, farmer, lecturer, and author of Folks, This Aint Normal, You Can Farm, and Salad Bar Beef

Wolf Girl is a delicate balance of thrilling narrative and meditative reflection that echoes the precious ecological balances Doniga Markegard comes to understand as a teenager and later mimics as an adult on a regenerative ranch. As Markegard learns to track animals, she also tracks the edges of her humanity and spirituality in relation to the natural world. Reminiscent of Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Wolf Girl is a tale of environmental awakening that will inspire the same curiosity, wonder, and back-to-the-land perspective in readers searching for meaning and avenues to action in a time of ecological chaos.

Stephanie Anderson, author of One Size Fits None: A Farm Girls Search for the Promise of Regenerative Agriculture

This poignant and moving call to humans to reconnect with nature is a book for our times. While it is written for young adultsthat increasingly activist generation who seek to clean up the mess of we previous generationsit will have a far wider appeal. This book deserves to be a bestseller.

Charles Massy, author of Call of the Reed Warbler

Doniga Markegards journey from teen runaway to expert tracker and on to mother, rancher, and activist artfully conveys what it means to be fully alive to the natural world. In Wolf Girl, she sets out a path for readers seeking grounding and direction during a confusing time. Written with love and hard-won insight, this book is as inspiring as it is beautiful.

Judith D. Schwartz, author of Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth

Doniga Markegards remarkable and highly unconventional journey from a teenager badly out-of-sync with her world to a rancher and mother working closely with nature is an inspiring story about finding your purpose in life. In an era of gloomy news and uncertain visions of the future, Donigas book is a breath of fresh, joyous air!

Courtney White, author of Grass, Soil, Hope and co-founder of the Quivira Coalition

A wonderful book that shines a light on an exciting path that will inspire many.

Tristan Gooley, author of The Natural Navigator, The Lost Art of Reading Natures Signs, and The Nature Instinct

Copyright Doniga Markegard 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing 2020

ISBN-13: 9781943370184

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019955173

Propriometrics Press: propriometricspress.com

Cover and Interior Design: Zsofi Koller, liltcreative.co

Cover images: Musjaka, Shutterstock; Kate Macate, Creative Market

Author photo: Lee Foster

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Markegard, Doniga, author.

Title: Wolf Girl : finding myself in the wild / Doniga Markegard.

Description: First Edition. | Sequim, Washington : Propriometrics Press,

2020. | Wilderenss Awareness School--Cover. | Includes bibliographical

references and index. | Audience: Ages 14 years and up | Audience: Grades 10-12

Identifiers: LCCN 2019053779 (print) | LCCN 2019053780 (ebook) | ISBN

9781943370184 (Paperback) | ISBN 9781943370191 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Markegard, Doniga--Juvenile literature. | Environmentalists--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature. |

Women environmentalists--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature.

| Organic farmers--United States--Biography--Juvenile literature. |

Wilderness survival--Juvenile literature. | Wolves--Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC GE55 .M37 2020 (print) | LCC GE55 (ebook) | DDC

636/.01092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053779

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053780

For my daughters and all daughters who follow their passions and seek an adventurous path.

I ts hard to be a young person right now. The climate crisis is picking up speed and creating terrible, terrifying changes. Wildfires are sweeping across huge areas, drought is threatening populated regions, flooding is ruining homes in other places. Its too hot, and our oceans are full of plastic. When were teenagers were taught to look to the future, but what future can you look to when the present is so bleak? Where can we find hope? How can we fix this mess?

Ive been there. I felt overwhelmed and hopeless as a teenager. I could see that our way of life was destroying the planet I love, and I couldnt figure out how to be part of the solution. Nothing I tried seemed like enough.

But in time, I learned how to be a part of the solution every single day, by modeling my life and my career on the lessons I have learned from nature. You may see yourself in this story. It is a story that is close to many of us, that speaks to our intuition.

Wolf Girl is the story of my awakening as a teenager, so named because the wolf has guided me on my lifes journey, often quite literally. This is the story of me coming of age, not only to separate myself from my family, but also to recognize my part in the web of life and see my role in reversing the environmental devastation caused by centuries of damaging industrial and agricultural practices. This is the story of what the wild has taught me, and how it can save us all.

When youre a teenager, it can be hard to see how your life is going to unfold before you. Its hard to know how your choices now can lead to the life youll have in your twenties, thirties, and beyond.

But looking back, I can see so clearly how I got to where I am, where the wolves led me. Im living a life where I am in tune with nature, where my work every day involves storing carbon back into the soil where it belongs. Im feeding my community healthy food and creating lush, thriving land in a drought-ridden place. Im a wolf girl, grown up: tending to my pack, playing my part in the health of the grasslands, and raising more wolf cubs.