Kathleen published her first book of poetry when she was just 20 years old and has gone on to win many prestigious awards for her extensive work including the Forward Prize for her book The Tree House which focused around nature and the natural world. Kathleen has long been involved and interested in nature and wild environments and she has developed a particular interest in whales and our attitudes towards them ever since watching Minke and killer whales on the shores of her native Scotland and finding a whale vertebrae washed up on the beach. An interest in bones (and whales) is the inspiration for her new book - a collection of essays - and she has visited us here at Bergen Museum to explore the project and the skeletons we are working with as research of one of the essays.
So, for the last two days Kathleen has been in the whale hall observing and exploring the skeletons and the work we are doing. It's been really interesting and fun working with Kathleen and I think we've gained a lot from the experience of talking with her and spending two days in her company. Although Kathleen has seen many whales in the wild both from the shore and from boats she is not as familiar with their skeletons - this visit gave her the opportunity to spend some time getting to know the bones and their history. She also inspired us to organise a trip to go and see some whales in the wild, as, despite spending all day working with whale skeletons not one of us had actually seen live whale in it's natural environment! So, we plan to have a whale team jolly to the North of Norway this autumn where we can see the Orca migrating along the coast following the herring the eat. We can't wait!
We hope Kathleen enjoyed visiting the whales here at the Museum as much as we enjoyed meeting her and we really hope she can visit again next year to see how the work is progressing - we look forward to her book being published and reading her new and exciting work.
