Adventures

(Chasing History)

Polar Sea

Ken McGoogan On the Ice

Ireland’s Islands

You need to go where things happened. That’s my credo. To tell a story, historical or otherwise, and to bring it to life, then in addition to the craft involved, you need to experience the WHERE of it. Maybe this belief is just an excuse to travel but I’ve acted on it – usually with Sheena, my life-partner (and photographer). Below we have images that find me chasing history in the cause of one book or another – and having a heckuva lot of fun along the way. To see YOUR mission, scroll to the bottom of the page.

But first, the videos above tell their own stories. And the following captions relate to the photos on the home page:

  • Atop MOUNT WELLINGTON in Hobart, Tasmania
  • Ken revisiting The Plaque overlooking RAE STRAIT
  • Sheena in QIKIQTARJUAK in the High Arctic
  • A jubilant couple in the NORTHWEST PASSAGE
  • Zodiac cruising off the west coast of GREENLAND

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify which image above goes with which nugget of information.

  • A handsome couple at DUNNOTTAR CASTLE on the east coast of Scotland
  • Sheena going over the fence in KINTYRE to conquer the sacred mountain
  • Sheena at CULLODEN with the Clan Fraser marker
  • Signing a book at the graves on BEECHEY ISLAND
  • in ILILULLISAT, Greenland, at the Knud Rasmussen Museum
  • Somewhere in the NORTHWEST PASSAGE: Ken at the helm of a zodiac
  • Stopping on BRUNY ISLAND, Tasmania, while riding The Wild Thing out of Hobart
  • WESTMINSTER ABBEY: reflecting on the injustice done to John Rae
  • BOOTHIA PENINSULA, 1999: carrying The Plaque and overlooking Rae Strait with Cameron Treleaven and Louie Kamookak
  • On the ISLE OF MAN at a memorial to the 1079 Battle of Skyhill, won by Godred Crovan, ancestor to all MacDonalds
  • South of Oslo at URANIENBORG, once home of explorer Roald Amundsen
  • In DUBLIN with a James Joyce statue known locally as The Prick with the Stick
  • At Lochmaddy in NORTH UIST, remembering the violent clearance of Sollas in 1849
  • Looking over ST KILDA, where Lady Grange held from 1734 to 1740
  • On the steps at the Hall of Clestrain near STROMNESS, with Orcadian historians Tom Muir and Bryce Wilson
  • In Kintyre with flags atop CRUACH MHIC GOUGAIN (Mount McGoogan)
  • Once more into ETAH FJORD in Greenland
  • AUCHINDRAIN TOWNSHIP, south of Inverary, at Archie McGoogan’s house
  • A young couple in TASMANIA