“A Hut in the Wild”: essays on huts from down under

Book notice of “Hut in the Wild” by Dianne Johnson, with a link to chapter one “Hut as Inscape“.

Dianne Johnson’s quirky, delightful, and inspiring book Hut in the Wild (http://www.loveofbooks.com.au, 2011) explores the hut as an archetype, “a cabin of the imagination, and inscape, it is redolent of a lost paradise regained, a gleaner’s bliss….and sometimes a place of hospitality.”  Dr. Johnson, an anthropologist, has compiled a series of essays as homage to the hut as a powerful “inscape”, or idea and  archetype. Johnson wrote books on many topics (including Aboriginal social justice and indigenous astronomies), and this little book (97 pages) is a flowering of her love affair with huts and wilderness.

The book begins with the universal — exploring huts in mythology, literature and architectural history; and huts as metaphor — and comes round to a loving a informative series of chapters based on the local, Australia in her case.  A hut means something different to someone from Switzerland or France than it does to an Australian.  In Australia the concept of huts is tied directly to  vernacular pioneer architecture of miners, dingo hunters, foresters, and stockmen.

GreenGully hut — photo by Dianne Johnson

Dianne Johnson, who passed away in 2012)  lived in the Blue Mountains and fondly describes the simple authenticity of the huts in the Australian Alps.  There is something about the spirit, culture, landscape, and history of Australia that that resonants romantically with Aussies about their legacy of huts.  Johnson’s book explores this phenomenon her through these essays.  She touches on building materials (including a chapter “Ripple Iron”, discussing the widely used corrugated iron) and also on the conservation of huts, which is a very big deal in Australia. For another introduction to the Australian hut scene, check out the books of Klaus Hueneke, in particular Huts of the High Country.

Like Ann Cline in A Hut of Ones Own, Johnson challenges us to imagine, “What is the hut of your dreams?”  Hut in Wild is a meditation on the hut as “An antonym of the labyrinth, the hut represents freedom: the release of one’s self from the excesses of reasoning, from intellectual justifications which can entrap and lead one astray.”  It is a lyrical evocation of personal and universal resonance with the idea and experience of huts:

“Whenever I remember and then relocate my hut in the wild, it becomes a place of redemption for my spirit…..my heart begins to sing.  And soar…..It is within the idea of the hut in the wild that it re-finds its own sweet song again — the song of myself: myself as a song.”

From Thoreau to Heidegger to Vitruvius, this book is studded with delightful anecdotes, and quotations, and with fascinating footnotes.  It deserves the attention of folks interested in the idea, history and variety of huts, and should be included in all mountaineering libraries.

Click “Hut as Inscape“ to read the first chapter of Hut in the Wild, which is reproduced here with permission of Dr. Johnson’s husband George Zdenkowski.

Sam Demas August 2015