Plant Encounters is live!

[This project closed / went offline in August 2021, as we came to the end of our funding]

The Long Walk Collective – Bo Yeung, Georgia Hammond, and me (Meg Walker) – is so excited and proud to announce that the Plant Encounters online publication is live!

What: “Plant Encounters” is an online multimedia publication at www.longwalkcollective.org that explores people-plant relationships in the boreal forest along Dawson City’s Ninth Avenue Trail.

When: From Sept 1/20 – Aug 1/21, take a scroll along the map to encounter close to 30 plants. Whether you’re old friends or just meeting for the first time, we hope you come away from this collection with a deeper appreciation of each and every one. 

Background: In May 2020, the Long Walk Collective invited artists to consider their relationships with specific plants along Dawson City’s Ninth Avenue Trail, and then create works from those connections. Our goal is to create intimacy with and further understanding of the flora of the trail, even over great distances.

The result: drawings, videos, music, photographs, poetry, fiction, and paintings that allow a new round of visitors to experience the plants through the eyes and ears of the artists.

We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens and government for allowing this work to take place on their territory. Special thanks are due to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Language and Heritage Departments, in particular to Georgette McLeod for her work in providing plant names in Hän, the language by which they were first known on this land.

Many thanks as well to the Yukon Arts Fund for encouragement and financial support.The Ninth Avenue Trail runs along the east side of Dawson City. It is used by walkers, runners, wanderers, and foragers. Plant Encounters invites viewers to slow down and contemplate the intricacies of peoples’ relationships with plants, as well as the particular nature of the plants themselves.

We hope this project can contribute to the larger conversation about human-plant reciprocity.