‘If you give up security you can have the world. You really can.’

Kristen Cosby

In this series of video conversations Dan Richards – author of Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth, an exploration of the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts – talks to artists and adventurers about life in remote spaces and the joys and challenges of living in the wilderness.

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Episode 1: Kristen Cosby, sailor and adventurer. Dan and Kristen discuss what it is like to live alone and be entirely responsible for your own survival.

Episode 2: Simon Starling, Turner Prize-winning artist. Dan and Simon discuss Shedboatshed, a project that took a shed on a most remarkable adventure.

Episode 3: Cal Flyn, writer. Dan and Cal discuss her book Islands of Abandonment, which eplores ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place.

Episode 4: Jim Henterley, Fire Lookout and Watchman at Desolation Peak. Dan and Jim discuss life on Desolation Peak in Washington State, and the challenges of being a fire lookout there, a post Jack Kerouac famously once held.

Episode 5: Sophia Jannson, Chair of Oy Moomin Characters. Dan and Sophia discuss Tove Jansson and her love of the remote island of Klovharun.

Watch Cabin Conversations

About Dan Richards

Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood) and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews and Climbing Days; the latter was shortlisted for the Adventure Travel Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Awards 2016. He has written for the Guardian, Harpers Bazaar, Caught by the River, the Quietus, Ernest Journal and Lodestars Anthology. In 2017 he was awarded a Royal Society of Literature Fellowship.

About Outpost

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. 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 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?

Cabin Conversations Credits

Hosted by Dan Richards
Edited by Mark Hannant
Produced by Story Machine
Funded by Arts Council England through National Lottery Project Grants

Cabin Conversations is produced as part of Deception Island, an antarctic refuge hut travelling the world to house an immersive poetry film experience by Elizabeth Lewis Williams.

Buy Deception Island