Six Peaks Speak

Book excerpt: Mountains can tell us much about our past. Six iconic peaks in Central Victoria, Australia: Mounts Kooroocheang, Beckworth, Greenock, Tarrengower, Alexander and Franklin, tower above the rich volcanic grasslands. Each has borne witness to dramatic changes in Dja Dja Wurrung Country over the past two centuries. Six Peaks Speak tells the unique stories and continuing legacies of these mountains from a multidisciplinary perspective. Created as part of Professor Barry Golding’s State Library Victoria Creative Fellowship in 2023, it accesses seldom-visited archives, turning the idea of ‘settling’ on its head, instead using ‘unsettling’ as its key organising principle. The book threads together insights and evidence from diverse historic sources, including First Nations, geological, ecological, community and reserve management. The peak-specific stories illustrate how many ‘taken for granted’ aspects of mountains may not be as they seem. This timely book raises questions about the extent to which mountain peaks and their surrounding reserves have been managed in the public interest. In the process, it seeks to answer the broader question, ‘How can we help future generations deal with the unsettling legacies of what has happened to mountains?’ It makes reference in its conclusion to the origins of International Mountain Day in the US, in the same era as these peaks were being unsettled in Australia in 1838. Aside from what it reveals about the six peaks, the book showcases ideas and methodologies for creatively reconnecting with and healing other mountains and the people who today live on their flanks, and on Country in between.