There are still wild places out there on our crowded planet. Through a
series of personal journeys, Dan Richards explores the appeal of
far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts.
These are landscapes that speak of deep time, whose scale can knock us
down to size. Their untamed nature is part of their beauty and such
places have long drawn the adventurous, the spiritual and the artistic.
For those who go in search of the silence, isolation and adventure of
wilderness it is - perhaps ironically - to man-made shelters that they
often need to head; to bothies, bivouacs, camps and sheds. Part of the
allure of such refuges is their simplicity: enough architecture to keep
the weather at bay but not so much as to distract from the natural
world.
Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch
lookouts of Washington State, from Iceland's 'Houses of Joy' to the Utah
desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan; Roald Dahl's
Metro-land writing hut to a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, Richards
explores landscapes which have inspired writers, artists and musicians,
and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? What can we do to protect
them? And what does the future hold for outposts on the edge?
