Juniper Time, Kate Wilhelm
Hm. The plot relies too much on some clichéd oppositions for me to really like the book - male/female, forcing/adapting, space/nature, Euro-American/Native American. On the other hand, the Anglo-American woman who makes a key to the plot's puzzle doesn't get it for free in either tradition. And, most realistically, the key she thinks of comes from her understanding, as an outsider, one of the cultures she's only half in. It isn't a solution to the questions either of the cultures were working on in their own frames.
ISBN: 0-671-83336-7
So wrote clew in
SF&F.