Peter Katic
For the past 28 years, Peter Katic has been area ranger for the National Trust in Upper Wharfedale, looking after a landscape cherished by both locals and visitors. He lives in Skipton with his wife, Grace, and has a daughter and a son.
What’s your first Yorkshire memory? I stayed in York for one night in 1980 while on a flying weekend visit with my brother and sister. I can’t remember much about it, but we did walk through the Shambles. We also drove over to Thirsk and then on into Wensleydale. It was a perfect crisp winter day. I particularly remember the long views of hills and moors that you always get in Wensleydale.
What’s your favourite part of the county – and why? It must be the southern Yorkshire Dales, but I’m biased because I’ve lived and worked there since 1992. Limestone country does feel different from the surrounding lower-lying valleys. The pale grey of the limestone seems to shine when the sun is out, grassland in spring is full of tiny jewels of flowers, and the air gets clearer and the colours more vivid.
What’s your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire? Despite my favourite place being the Dales, my ideal weekend would be spending a couple of days on the coast and staying in Whitby.
Do you have a favourite walk
– or view? My favourite walk is the higher path from Yockenthwaite to Cray, returning along a section of the Dales Way along the River Wharfe. It encapsulates everything that’s lovely about the Dales. There’s superb woodland and grassland at the start and, at the right time of year, you might see the uncommon Northern Brown Argus butterfly. The view extends far down Wharfedale to Barden Moor, with Ilkley Moor peeping over its shoulder. The return from Cray is more intimate, following tree-lined Cray Beck and the River Wharfe. Towards the end are the amazing Yockenthwaite meadows. In early summer, they’re full of yellow rattle, wood cranesbill, knapweed, eyebright and many other flowers and grasses.
Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner? I’m a “Trekkie”, so it would be Sir Patrick Stewart, mainly so I could get him to say “Make it so” or “Engage!”
If you had to name your Yorkshire ‘hidden gem’, what would it be? My favourite hidden places are the waterfalls you come across when out and about for a walk in the Dales. Usually they’re in small, rocky ravines surrounded by trees and ferns, and hopefully lit by dappled sunlight. There are well-known ones, such as Janet’s Foss, near Malham, but many are scattered around the secretive gills of the Dales.
Do you have a favourite restaurant or pub? I like Salts Diner in Saltaire – great food and a noisy, bustling atmosphere. There’s also a good bookshop to wander around in Salts Mill, plus lots of David Hockney artworks to see.
If you had to change one thing in, or about Yorkshire, what would that be? I would like to see grouse moors managed in a far less intensive way. I’d also like to see a wider range of trees and scrub creeping up the hillsides onto the moorland, making it a more natural landscape rather than a monoculture of common ling heather. This might seem heretical to those who believe that the wide-open treeless vistas are emblematic of the hills of Yorkshire, but the heather moors are kept that way through burning, which in itself has detrimental environmental effects, such as causing air pollution and impacting on water quality.
Has Yorkshire influenced your
work? Very much so – Yorkshire is my work. In 1992, I was fortunate to successfully interview for the post of area ranger for the new National Trust estate in Upper Wharfedale. When I applied, I remember one of my reasons for wanting the job was that I knew I would like the opportunity to work somewhere where dry stone walls were such an important part of the landscape. Now I particularly enjoy dry stone walling and have been able to share that with people over the years, helping them to learn the skill for
themselves.
How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you’ve known it?
Not meaning to blow my own trumpet but I like to think that I have made some small changes for good myself in the Dales through my work. I’ve planted many trees, helped to reintroduce the lady’s slipper orchid to where it used to grow, looked after the footpaths and more. Of course, not many people have the same opportunity that I have to make the Dales better and I feel very lucky and am grateful for it.
Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/ performer.? The book would be Wuthering Heights. The first time I read it, I was surprised at the harsh lives of the people in it. The artist would be John Atkinson Grimshaw.
If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be? A term which isn’t used so much these days is sublime. The sublime, during the 18th and 19th centuries, was associated with the immensity or turbulence of nature and human responses to it. A sublime place in Yorkshire is Gordale Scar, near Malham. With the National Trust I’ve been there on many occasions with people who had no idea where I was taking them. The view, as they turn the corner and see the immense ravine for the first time, never fails to stop them in their tracks. It still does that for me, too. The overhanging cliffs, the water crashing through the hole in the rocks and the strange feeling, almost of impending doom, that it all somehow gives you, are most definitely sublime.