We love the work of local writer and photographer Joanna Pocock, author of the much-praised travel memoir Greyhound, in which she travelled across America on buses (spoiler: it wasn’t pretty). Her latest essay has just been published in the final print issue of Dark Mountain, a literary magazine which explores humanity’s relationship with nature (something Joanna charts via her Bluesky feed, often in Wanstead Park).
The essay recalls a 50-mile canoe journey through Montana’s Missouri Breaks wilderness, using the instruction to leave no trace as the starting point for a more complicated question: might some human interventions actually leave a landscape in better condition? You can read Leave No Trace here at Dark Mountain