To the Edges of the Earth: A Journey into Wild Land

by Peter Pickford

Four years. Seven continents. A quest to document and champion the preservation of the most remote wilderness realms on earth. Veteran wildlife photographer Peter Pickford and his wife Beverly had a dream to photograph the last remaining wild land on earth. ‘We had become increasingly distressed by two ideas. The first was a sense of panic as to how rapidly wild places and the life that thrived there was diminishing. The second was that we felt compelled to act, to do something about it. I was haunted by the words of ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’.’
To the Edges of the Earth recounts the story of their four and a half years of overland travel, across every continent on earth, in their specially adapted Land Rover. Their journey took them not only through the earth’s last wild landscapes, but deeper into the heart of the adventure that is the places, the people, the excitement, the serenity, the hardship and the joy that stepping outside into the unknown makes so immediate to our attention.
Join them on their journey through the storms of Antarctica, the quiet brooding of ancient Patagonian forest, and discover the vast vistas and wild denizens of Alaska and the Yukon. Feel the potent scrutiny of a polar bear in the Arctic, suffer the lack of oxygen of the Tibetan Plateau, the loneliness of the deserted Australian Kimberley, and sleep beside lions in the chill dawn of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast to culminate ultimately, as all journeys should, in a powerful evocation of who we are and our subconscious association and bond with the planet that is our home.

448 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Michelle N · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[Tiah]

~I know that it can be argued that wild is actually beside us all the time: in the sapling that pushes up through the pavement cracks, in the owl that raises its chicks in an abandoned shed, in the wolf packs that patrol the deserted streets of towns around Chernobyl - it is there, waiting to reclaim its sovereignty. But everywhere men are more and when men occupy land what is wild is the first to retreat.~

~The penguin cannot taste the fish that it is eating, but the fish can taste the penguin that is eating it!~

~PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB THE FISH
DO NOT GO IN THE CREEK UNLESS
GRANDMA KATIE SAYS IT'S OK
TSIN'AEN~

~If I have learnt anything on this voyage around these cold, snowbound islands, which less than two hundred years ago teemed with life, it is that by shrugging off what is obviously wrong, as either not our concern or beyond our capacity, or too late, what we harvest is silence.~

~'How would you describe [the call of woodswallows]?'
'Like a chandelier in the wind.'~

~The experience I have had has been remarkable but my photography is the voice with which I speak of it to those who will never come here, and tonight that voice has failed me.~

~If one is to interfere in the lives of other people, then what is required is a lifetime commitment, not a once-off visit.~