The way that people respond to wild places lights them up; so proposes writer Dan Richards, who’s latest acclaimed book, ‘Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth’, explores what wilderness means to us. In this podcast he discusses whether our response to wilderness is bearing witness to the traces of humans who have been affected by places that, in our imagination, are meant to be savage and untameable.
Does wilderness comprise the places where a writer can touch ‘other’? Be lonely? Feel alive? Escape human connection? Or see what the world would be like without us? These places change us, and with music by Dan himself and prompting from Colin - solo in this episode - together they ponder ultimately whether humans are entitled to go to these places that might themselves be irrevocably changed by our visits?
THEME MUSIC BY DAVID ROTHENBERG. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST http://www.davidrothenberg.net
Some of the ideas and references we make in this podcast can be found here:
Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth
Wealden Literary Festival
Dan Richards
Svalbard
Ny Ålesund
Polar Bear
Climate change
Desolation Peak
Jack Kerouac
On the Road
Thoreau
Walden
Roald Dahl
Francis Bacon
Edward Abbey
Gary Snyder
Cairngorm Mountains
Bothy
Iceland sæluhús
Mars Desert Research Station
Cordouan Lighthouse
Ray Bradbury
The Foghorn
The Signalman, Charles Dickens
Roger Deakin
Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers
Oscar II Land