[백두대간의 사나이] Roger Shepherd

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Shepherd's travels were focused on the mountains themselves, and not the people and culture of North Korea. Still, he says, the people he encountered during his trips were "a highlight." He was frequently helped out by locals along the way - whether it was through offers of accomodation, or guides who led the way up some of the trickiest terrain.

North Korea is often treated as a strange, mysterious place, Shepherd says - somewhere to be gawked at by the rest of the world. But these pictures provide a glimpse at a side of North Korea - its natural beauty - outside of  the mass rallies and blustery politics emanating from Pyongyang that form so many peoples' main impressions of the country. 

"Mountain photography doesn't generate controversy, of which there is plenty on the peninsula," Shepherd says. But through the study of Korea's mountains, it's still possible to come to a more complete understand of the peninsula's people - north and south - and what they represent.

"The Baekdu Daegan still holds deep rooted importance to the Korea people" that goes deeper than the ideologies keeping both halves of the Korean nation apart, he says. "It goes back into the very DNA of the Korean people: born from mountains."

Roger Shepherd is a native New Zealander and the owner of Hike Korea, a company based in Songnisan Mountain in central South Korea. His book of mountain photography, BAEKDU DAEGAN KOREA, will be published in July 2013. In July 2014, he plans to spend six months walking the entire length of the Baekdu Daegan. - from Forign Policy

뉴질랜드인 로저 셰퍼드는 한국을 사랑하여 일제가 끊은 백두대간을 연결하는 작업을 하기 위해, 남한과 북한의 백두대간을 모두 종주한 유일한 백두대간의 사나이다.그는 남한 쪽 백두대간 735km를 종주한데 이어 금강산, 두류산, 식개산 등 북측 백두대간까지 모두 답사하였다. 그는 어린 시절 아프리카로 여행을 떠나, 이후 9년간 남아프리카공화국, 모잠비크, 잠비아 등을 거치며 국립공원 관리인, 사파리 가이드 등으로 활동하였다. 그는 2000년 처음 한국을 방문하였다. 2001년 뉴질랜드로 귀국해 경찰 공무원 생활을 시작한 그는 2006년 3개월 휴가를 받아 한국을 방문했고, 우연히 백두대간에 대한 이야기를 듣고 첫 번째 종주를 시도했다.

이후 백두대간이라는 영문 웹사이트를 운영하고 영문가이드북 'BAEKDU DAEGAN TRAIL'이라는 책으로 역사, 지리, 문화적 의미를 홍보하는 등 전 세계에 백두대간을 알리기 위해 노력했다. 2010년 가을, 뉴질랜드 정부와 문화교류NGO의 도움을 받아 북한을 방문, 백두대간을 밟아볼 수 있는 계기를 마련했다. 2011년, 북한의 백두대간을 오르내리며 찍은 44점의 사진 등 한반도의 백두대간을 담은 70점의 사진을 전시한 '남과 북의 백두대간' 사진전을 열었다. 현재는 한국관광공사 명예홍보대사로 활동 중이다. 그는 백두대간을 종주하며 '산허리가 뚝뚝 끓어져 나간 곳을 보면 마치 나의 팔다리가 끊어져 나간 것처럼 가슴이 아팠다'고 말할 정도로 백두대간에 큰 애착과 사랑을 가지고 있다.

로저 세퍼드가 북한의 백두대간을 종주하고 남긴 사진들...

Photos by Roger Shepherd

Above, farmers catch a lift across the Saepo-gun plateau below the Baekdu Daegan ridge in Kangwondo, DPRK.

Above, farmers catch a lift across the Saepo-gun plateau below the Baekdu Daegan ridge in Kangwondo, DPRK.

In North Korea, the mountain range has become a place to be valued for its resources, Shepherd says. It's frequented by skilled woodsmen, hunters and foragers looking for timber, meat, and herbs - people who, Shepherd says, "share a unique relationship with nature, that is rarely seen these days in modern consumerist nations." The Baekdu Daegan range is considered the source of energy and life on the peninsula, in part because its mountains are the point of origin for almost all of Korea's major rivers. Above, loggers send timber downstream near Dacheonpyeong-ri near the Baekdu Daegan in Eunheung-gun, Yanggangdo.

With elevations ranging between 700 and 2,000 meters, the Kaema-gowon plateau in the northern central province of Yanggangdo is known as the "roof of Korea." Local people there live a subsistence lifestyle: Rice cannot grow in these altitudes, so their main crop is potatoes and other vegetables, supplemented by goats, sheep, and cattle. Above, farmers on the Kaema-gowon plateau.

A shepherd takes his goats to pasture up on the mountains in Sinyang-gun, Pyeongannamdo.

Above, a monument to 'Songun,' or the DPRK's military-first policy, in the small town of Kim Hyong Gwon, located on the Kaema-gowon plateau in Yanggangdo, DPRK. This town, once known as Pungsan, was renamed Kim Hyong Gwon as a tribute to Kim Il Sung's uncle, a celebrated revolutionary in the North who fought against the Japanese in the early 20th century.  

In the North, Shepherd says, part of the Baekdu Daegan's fame now comes from its former role as a refuge for Korean independence fighters -- including North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Relics from that era, including old secret hideout camps and trees carved and inked with revolutionary slogans, are still preserved as memorials on the mountain slopes.

A young mother and baby on a bike near Bukdaebong mountain, Singyang-gun, Pyongannamdo. "The squeaky spokes of the bicycle were the only sounds I heard as I sat on the side of the road in the tranquil silence of the Korean countryside," Shepherd says.

The forests in North Korea's northern regions - particularly on the Baekdu Daegan - remain in a primal, untouched state, Shepherd says. "These areas were always seen as wild lands," he said.

One of the guides living on Korea's holy Baekdusan mountain.

Walking back down from Cholongsan mountain on the Baekdu Daegan

through maize fields located on the Jungheung-ri plateau, Pyonggannamdo

The group's accomodations, near Bujeon-ryeong, Hamgyeongnamdo. The man pictured eating lunch is Hwang Sung Chol, secretary-general of the New Zealand Korea Friendship Society, who helped arrange Shepherd's trip.

"Often, my journeys saw us taking breaks by the seaside to recuperate our bodies and minds," Shepherd says. Here, a brother and sister play on a beach called Hwajin-po in Goseong-gun, Kangwondo.

Railway tracks built by the Japanese in the early 20th century deliver coal

and other minerals throughout the Kaema-gowon plateau region.

The border town of Hyesan, near Mt. Baekdu. The ridge rising in the background is part of China.

A cinema in the small town of Eunheung-gun, in the foothills of the Baekdu Daegan in Kaema-gowon, Yanggangdo.

"My awesome forest service guide Pak Geum Chol for the big, 2,309 meter mountain

of Duryusan in Baegam-gun, Yanggangdo province."

"On our ascent up Duryusan, someone had filled the majority of our plastic water bottles with acorn soju (distilled wine) instead of water ... By chance, a brother and sister were effortlessly passing over the mountain and led us to a hidden spring where we replenished our bottles."

Above, the Baekdu Daegan range looms over a village in Sudong-gun, Hamyeongnamdo. 

Young cadets of the Korean People's Army take shelter under a parasol

in the larch pine forests of the Paektu-gowon plateau.

Above, a farmer and his cow on the Kaema-gowon plateau. These cows, called Hanu, are indigenous to Korea. Those that live on the northern plateaus are said to have shorter legs, due to the altitude.

A farming community in the Kaema-gowon plateau, Yanggangdo. 

Shepherd with his team on the summit of Duryusan mountain in Cheonnae-gun, Kangwondo. "What was supposed to be a one-hour hike turned into an eight-hour ordeal," as the team struggled to get up the steep mountain, Shepherd says. "I nicknamed my guide [far left] Mr. Han Shigan, meaning 'Mr. One-Hour.'"

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