ON HORIZON
“It’s not just historical. Exploration is ongoing but has been redefined. Our quest for knowledge is taking us in different directions.
“We filled in most of the blanks on the map – that’s what drew people in the first place.
“The quest now is more focused on protection and conservation and how we can better understand the effects of climate change and how we can help avert humanitarian disasters caused by natural factors.”
She also wanted to focus on women explorers.
Jo said: “Even from the earliest times, they took themselves off and did the most amazingly daring things. They had an additional barrier to overcome which was the way women were perceived at the time. They were breaking lots of social codes just by travelling alone.”
Scottish traveller and botanist Isobel Wylie Hutchison set off on her own to explore Iceland, Greenland and then Alaska in the 30s.
Jo said: “In 1933, she trekked all the way up the coast of Alaska by dog sled. She had to pay her way on these trading ships that used to go up and down the coast. She was on her own which must have been a risky business. She never expected trouble but never received it.”
Isabella Bird was a 19th century explorer who lived in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull and married an Edinburgh surgeon – but she was originally from Yorkshire.
Jo said: “She became a best-selling travel writer.”
She trekked to Hawaii – then known as the Sandwich Islands – to explore volcanos and did line drawings of them.
In central Asia, she hired porters to carry her on a chair up mountains and she was also an early photographer – keeping her camera strapped beneath her chair.
The book also features Sir John Murray who was a Scottish naturalist and joined the Challenger Expedition charting the world’s oceans.
Jo said: “He did lots of scientific work but one of the main purposes was to test the depths of the oceans.”
Another Scot, John George Bartholomew is included for the work he did creating maps from the information Murray and his team compiled.
Iconic Scottish mountain climber Bill Murray – known as W H Murray – produced a series of books in the 40s and 50s which were responsible for inspiring many people to take to the hills and get climbing.
Thoughts of the mountains probably helped him survive while he was a prisdidn’t oner during World War II. Jo said: “He wrote while in a German prisoner of war camp – very much along the Colditz style.
“He wrote on reams of toilet paper, which he secreted about his person.
“The German guards found the first version and confiscated it. So when he was moved again to another prison camp, he started again and made sure the transcript was never found.
“When the Allies came and released everyone, Murray managed to get home with his pages intact and that was the basis of his first book.
“He was able to lift himself away from the confines of the walls and transported himself back to the mountains he loved so much.”
Scottish explorer Sir Patrick Geddes is also an inspiration for his conservational beliefs that were ahead of his time.
Jo said: “He believed we are all connected with the environment.”
Joseph Thomson, from Dumfriesshire, took over leading an African expedition when he was in his 20s.
Sadly, he died when he was just 37 from complications of a disease caught in Africa.
At a time when explorers were trying to map and lay claim to land, Thomson JO WOOLF want to exploit countries – he wanted to explore. Scotland’s own Antarctic explorer William Speirs Bruce is also featured. He organised and led the Antarctic Scotia Expedition from 1902-4. The team didn’t make it to the South Pole due to weather conditions but they carried out scientific work and founded a meteorological station which is still working to this day – making it the longest-running in the Antarctic. More modern adventurers include Scottish polar explorer Craig Mathieson, who is also explorer in residence at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He runs the Polar Academy, training kids for expeditions. She said: “He is inspiring the explorers of the future.” Jo hopes the book will inspire others to realise their potential. She said: “At the deepest leveI, I hope it might convince people they’re capable of anything – they have no limit. “If you have something you’re dreaming of, don’t let go of it because you can make it happen.” The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration by Jo Woolf is released on November 16, £24.99.