Transfrontier

John Glynn

Description

Saul Eldershaw, a freelance photographer, travels to Southern Africa to secure a series of farms. The farmland, once returned to nature, will link two established National Parks. The corridor will reinstate the migratory routes of the wild animals and provide as a catalyst for the rewilding of the area. There, in the wilderness, Saul obsesses over the establishment of the Transfrontier Park and what is required to create the reserve.Saul's quest spans three continents. He journeys from the glaciers of Alaska, the seas of Port Jackson, to the expanses of the National Parks of Southern Africa. To achieve his mission, he will need to learn who he can trust. He must challenge the narrative, examine the reality portrayed in his photographs, and question his own memories. Is the world simply repeating patterns of light and shadows enfolding on itself, or can Saul bring genuine change?

Sujets

• Southern Africa
• Alaska

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803139821
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 John Glynn

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Matador
Unit E2 Airfield Business Park,
Harrison Road, Market Harborough,
Leicestershire. LE16 7UL
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks

ISBN 9781803139821

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For my parents, both of whom died while I was over the seas, locked down during the Covid-19 pandemic


For Beth and John

‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.’

Plato


Contents
Kachemak Bay
Chugach Mountain Range
Sydney
Kruger National Park
Victoria Falls
Hwange National Park
Victoria Falls
Masvingo Province
Harare
Sydney


Kachemak Bay
‘Compacted, crystallised and unscattered, such penetrating fractured beauty from light undisturbed.’
Saul typed the words as he stared at the thin blue lines interconnected and spread throughout the ice. With an intense stare at the image of the vast glacial wall, he traced his finger around the opening of a sapphire-coloured cave until he returned to the white-blue block of ice obstructing its entrance as it lay on the bed of exposed black rock. The ocean, mirror smooth after the calving, upheld the stationary mini-icebergs and growlers, adding to the sense of the cold and the desolation being portrayed in the photograph. Individualistic in their memory capture.
As he stared at the image, Saul shivered. He recalled how crisp the katabatic winds were coming off the glacier. The flurries engulfing their small boat and all those who huddled on its deck, all those entranced in the magnificence of this icy landscape, all those taking their photographs.
This is the picture to introduce the collection , thought Saul, writing the location ‘ Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park’ . A close-up shot of the gnarled confusion of the glacier seams should probably follow this photo, yes, a shot detailing how jagged, even serrated, that wall face really is, but always beautiful in its calved autumn blueness.
Working against the arbitrariness of the photographs, now organised, and catalogued, Saul flicked through a few more of the captures on his computer screen. I should use a photo that pulls back from the close-up and allow the viewer to draw breath and study the glacier in perspective , he thought. To wonder at that massive river of ice creating its own path from the cloud-covered frozen sheets through the rock to rendezvous with the waiting ocean.
Saul typed ‘ College Fjord ’’ into the Internet search engine and then flicked through the miniature images that resulted on his screen. He increased the size of the pictures and scrutinised his photographs that he had chosen of the Harvard Glacier. The photographs depicted the frozen river flowing down the mountain valley; immense, mobile and thunderous. Next, he studied the picture of the Wellesley Glacier as it came bounding, leaden, between the mountains, over the lip, down the burnished mountainside to embrace its destiny in the frigid Fjord waters. Saul paused and enlarged a photograph that captured both the Byrn Mawr and the Smith Glaciers, adding to the drama of the place. Both were ice-tumbling from high up; their mountain origins were clouded and sunlit in places, highlighting the ice fields against the low grey clouds. The two glaciers in the frame provided a sense of the monumental ice field hidden in the eerie, inhospitable cloud-covered mountain range looming above the placid ocean. The floating icebergs at their base produced an impression of frozen waterfalls spiralling, twisting, fracturing and falling.
Saul glanced up and, taking a sip from his coffee mug, looked around. The boat’s galley was spacious. The refurbishment of the fishing trawler was crude but effective. A little more sanding might get rid of the rough build results. The nails could have been better arranged but easily enough hidden, especially the bent ones. Too many hammer marks as well. The wood, even though closely seated, had been bunged and coated against the gales. It was a home against an Alaskan winter. He wondered what it might be like to stay here, on the peninsular, through the lingering wintry months. The winds come off the ocean, unhindered and unwavering. Even this landed boat may be bucketed and pushed about. Certainly, ice up too. Solid, wooden, functional. Just not for the prolonged winters.
Not for me, anyway , thought Saul, and placed his mug on the wooden table and flexed his large, bronzed hand. He squinted at the next capture, hooking his hair behind his ear. Dense and compressed, the ice, as if sliced, had fissured and had fallen into the sea. Frozen in frame, the glacial wedge had plunged into the icy waters, now white and rippled and fractured, broken from history, an era bygone.
I can place myself exactly in the spot where I took the picture , he thought. I can tell how I felt, the chill coming off the glacier, my stiff, ungloved hand unforgiving. For the composition and orchestration of the photo, you must be present, precisely there – and sometimes it pays off as the photograph becomes more than just a thing of beauty, or mood. It will show a story, hidden things that are only revealed later. It is the latter that I always search for. Yes.
Saul stared at the image and witnessed but the surface of the story, but a fragment of the happenings. He gazed at it and marvelled. Here was a shred of the narrative as it sparked an idea, the world as an idea, but for the moment, it eluded him.
In the warmth and closeness of the old fishing boat’s cabin, Saul continued to flick through his catalogue of images. Here in these folders were his life’s experiences, his world appropriated and held. He added his keywords. A burning log sparked and crackled before breaking in two and settling into the orange burn of the pot-bellied stove. The wooden floorboards of the boat creaked. Saul turned and watched as Theodora, dressed only in a woollen pullover and her leg bracelet, emerged from the fore compartment and, although small in stature, ducked before making her way through the galley. She has the build of a gymnast , thought Saul , short but solid-limbed . Her muscular legs were tanned up to the shorts line from the summer months working at Denali National Park. They were in contrast to her ankles and broad feet, sun-hidden from hiking boots and thick socks. Her toes were stubby, with purple painted toenails.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” said Saul, smiling, “have a good sleep?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, pushing her dishevelled mouse-blonde hair behind her three-earring studded ear, and walked over to kiss Saul. When his hand slid under her pullover, she backed away and made for the coffee pot percolating on the stove. “The coffee smells so good. You are up early.”
“I wanted to get a start on the book,” said Saul, turning his attention back to the laptop. “I try to clean up the photographs as I go along, but as always, it still takes months to sort through and catalogue. Such is the lot of a photographer. I have downloaded the shots of Denali that your boyfriend requested.”
Theodora squeezed next to Saul, careful to keep her coffee mug far enough away from his computer. She glanced at Saul’s sun-weathered face. “Those glacial photos from Holgate Arm are incredible. You notice things I don’t see.” She paused and when Saul remained silent, she continued.
“That boat trip from Seward was amazing. I mean, it terrified me when we left the shelter of the islands and headed out into the open water. I had never seen such enormous waves. At times, I thought we could be engulfed. The horizon just disappeared behind that wall of grey-green. And then, sure enough, the boat’s nose rode up and over the swell.
“It is astonishing to see, just to see, how rough that ocean can get, even in pleasant weather. I was so glad when we went back and entered the calmness of the sheltered bay. I know you enjoyed it, having spent most of your life on boats and surfing in Australia. But I was scared. I come from the mountains, not the sea. I wouldn’t want to be out there in inclement weather. It was rough enough as it was.
“While the cruise and the glaciers were memorable, I think the highlight for me was encountering those sea otters. To watch them gently floating on their backs so at one with their environment, using the currents, a manner suggesting peace without cause.” Her deep brown eyes half closed, her full lips hinting at a smile in the memory.
“I generally don’t just photograph what I look at,” explained Saul. “I tend to gaze at something from a particular angle, find what interests me and where the connection is. You can get your energy from, say, the bustle of built-up cit