Story Cafe round up: Peak beyond Peak

Peak Beyond Peak: the unpublished Scottish Journeys of Isobel Wylie Hutchison compiled and transcribed by Hazel Buchan Cameron

On 11th May, we welcomed Hazel Buchan Cameron to talk about her eight year journey to transcribe and publish these previously unpublished diaries of intrepid traveller, walker, writer, artist, photographer, film-maker, folklorist and botanist Isobel Wylie Hutchison and to read us extracts from Peak Beyond Peak.

After introducing Hazel, Wendy asked her to tell us how she became interested this fascinating Scotswoman.  Hazel explained that while working as Writer in Residence at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in Perth she had been handed a red box file with the suggestion that she “might be interested in its contents”.  She had very quickly become “entranced” by their writer and began her quest, despite the challenge of transcription and obtaining copyright permissions, to publish her Scottish journals.

Asked to tell us more about her Isobel’s life, Hazel explained that she was born in 1889.  Her happy childhood with a sister and two brothers was spent at Carlowrie Castle in West Lothian but her father died when she was ten, one brother died in a climbing accident and one in the 1st World War.  She walked the length of The Western Isles in 1924 and between 1925 and 1936 travelled to Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands and was still walking and writing about her experiences in her later life before her death in 1982. This whetted our appetite for hearing the extracts from the book which Hazel read to us.

After the break Wendy wondered what we should take from reading the book. Hazel said that Isobel’s motto was “why not” when told that a journey wasn’t possible and hoped that it would be adopted by young people on reading of her exploits. 

At present the books Isobel published on her Arctic journeys are all out of print.  She also wrote poetry, articles for National Geographic, and gave many lectures to various Royal Societies. Archival material is held in Scotland by The National Library of Scotland, the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in Perth.

It’s impossible in a short blog to convey the richness of Isobel’s life, from her friendship with Estonian traveller, Gus Masik, to her beautiful botanical illustrations and her ability to fit into a society wherever she was.  Just reading Hazel’s outline of her life filled me with admiration for this brave, fearless, talented woman who deserves to be much better known and hopefully, as Hazel explained, this is beginning to happen. After the session I spoke with American historian Kali Israel who is in Scotland researching Isobel’s early life and education within her Scottish context and had travelled from Edinburgh for this Story Cafe.

Last year BBC Alba broadcast Greenland, a programme about the year Isobel spent in Greenland which includes extracts from films she made whilst there. Coincidentally this was re-shown earlier this month.  Greenland, at time of writing, is still available on the BBC i player. 

Peak Beyond Peak is available for loan from GWL – highly recommended, a fascinating read.

This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.