Wilderness Connection

Have a listen to Cameron McNeish's inspiring podcast with Ron Craighead of Backpackinglight at http://www.backpackinglight.com/. Cameron is editor of tgo, the UK's leading outdoors mag, and is passionate about the importance of 'wilderness connection'. His informal and enthusiastic reflections range far and wide, from the shielings and ancient standing stones of Scotland to the significance of wilderness writers such as John Muir, Edward Abbey and Colin Fletcher. He's romantic and emotional about the subject - but also pragmatic and realistic about the need to lobby politicians and get them on our side in order to achieve rights of access to the countryside and to preserve wilderness areas.

Wilderness Walks

I have just watched once more - back-to-back on the UKTV Gardens channel - some of Cameron McNeish's spectacular Wilderness Walks. Surely the best TV programmes ever produced in the UK about wilderness treks. They featured Chris Brasher in the Cairngorms; Chris Smith on the island of Mull; Matty McNair leading a dog sled team on Baffin Island's Meta Incognita Plateau; Lesley Riddoch, the feminist journalist, in County Kerry's Macgillycuddy's Reeks; John Mackenzie, the Earl of Cromartie, in Letterewe, Wester Ross; and David Craig, the poet and historian, on the Knoydart Peninsula. Congratulations again to Cameron, and to the director Richard Else, on a wonderfully uplifting series of programmes. One of my New Year's resolutions is to get up to Scotland and experience it all first-hand...

The Great Outdoors

I've read The Great Outdoors mag - or tgo as it now calls itself - right from the very first issue. (Though mainly for the unsurpassable essays by the legendary Jim Perrin it must be said.) I used to read it standing up for long periods in W. H. Smith until I could afford to buy it myself (maudlin sound of violins please!) There's no serious competition. Country Walking I find yawningly anodyne and middle-of-the-road, and Trail just makes me cringe. Ok - I know I'm probably the wrong age to appreciate it, but I just can't stand Trail's self-consciously trendy style as it tries to capture the outdoors youth market. So congratulations to Cameron McNeish for an excellent periodical. The mag's had its fair share of problems over the years with layout and presentation, but there's never been another monthly publication which could ever hope to match its maverick and committed philosophy. Long may it continue.