Muskwa-Kechika Artist Camp Collection

Athabasca University Library Services (AU) is partnering with Writing on the Ridge (WOTR) to promote wilderness preservation and to raise awareness about one of North America's few remaining intact wilderness areas - the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area (M-KMA).

Writing on the Ridge (WOTR) has created a program - the Muskwa-Kechika Artist Camp - that provides opportunities for Artists to experience the natural history of the M-KMA. The Muskwa-Kechika Artist Camps bring aboriginal and non-aboriginal artists working in a variety of disciplines (visual art, writing, performance art, photography) into the wilderness area with the hope that the dialogue the artists begin, and the artwork they produce, will maintain awareness of the M-KMA. Each year's camps reserves 2 spaces for artists under the age of 18.

The artist camps will run for five years, and after the last camp in 2011 WOTR hopes to find a permanent place for the collection. They also hope to publish a book about the camps, and about the artwork inspired in the M-KMA.

The Muskwa-Kechika Artist Camp Collection is a part of the The University of the Arctic (UArctic) International Polar Year (IPY) Higher Education and Outreach cluster, which is composed of a wide-ranging group of projects that reflect a diverse set of approaches to satisfying the higher education and outreach needs of IPY. The cluster was an integral part of UArctic's IPY proposal which was submitted in September 2005 and endorsed in November 2005.