Walking on Country
Imagine what would happen if the internet disappeared.
Without warning, the place we go to research, learn, connect, understand, ask questions and discover—all gone. No more searching for the best knots to tighten a tarp, shave three grams off your pack weight or find a pattern for DIY gaiters. No more places to go searching for the best recipe for dehydrated chilli con carne, to research the Franklin Dam or Pedder protests, to track down the passes of Narrowneck or the history of Myles Dunphy.
The knowledge of all things still exists, it is just that the conduit, the channel, has disappeared. It is now held within the minds of storytellers, of wise ones; of those who have walked, cooked, built, made, studied, protested, lived, loved, healed or journeyed before us.
How much more precious this knowledge now is, that we see how access can disappear in an instant. How much more revered are the holders of this wisdom. How treasured and privileged it would be to now sit with these clever ones and to hear from them.
This is how it felt to walk, early on a March morning, into the Elders Council of Tasmania Aboriginal Corporation located in a quiet suburban street on the hilly part of Launceston. With the architecture of a community hall and the quiet reverence of a Quaker meeting, the air vibrated with the weight of knowledge, held in the gaze of the surrounding portraits. Row upon row of eyes looked into my soul from their regal assuredness. Humble and quiet, mighty and proud.
The essence of the history of the
