Abstract
For the past few years I have been making work in the field of ecopoetics and place-awareness in the Scottish wilderness, primarily the Cairngorms and Glenmoriston. I’ve been exploring the hill crazes of stalking and climbing, surveying rewilding and innovative pinewood regeneration projects, and working with place-names as records of past, present and future ecology. During that time I have also been using place-awareness to deal with constraints on my walking due to long-term illness. This year I wanted to challenge this substantial body of work – which now includes five books, The Road North, A Company of Mountains, Some Colour Trends, A far-Off Land and Gathering – by finding out what rewilding could mean in an urban context. Collaborating with the Walking Library (Dee Heddon and Misha Myers) was a way to gather together a body of ideas and research, expand the concept, involve a large group of participants, and locate the project in routes through the city. Glasgow, with its old dockyards and waste lots, was an ideal place to begin, and I hope to continue elsewhere. These maps are one aspect of the project; a book will follow later this year.