Poland: Bison & Legend

I visited Poland in 2016 courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. On previous visits for Lonely Planet, I paid all my own expenses.

In May this year, I had the privilege of walking through the Strictly Protected Area of Białowieża National Park in eastern Poland.

You can read the resulting story at Lonely Planet's website here.

This surviving fragment of the great forests which once covered northern Europe is special for many reasons - not least of which is being the home of the last wild European bison.

Here's a photo of one I snapped close up in winter 2006, in the European Bison Show Reserve near the park:

Impressive, isn't it? They can weigh as much as 900kg.

It's hard to see them within the forest itself, as they tend to avoid humans. But the beautiful greenery is fair compensation.

And, as timeless as this forest seems, it holds stories. My guide on this year's tour, Łukasz Ławrysz, called this massive trunk lying on the forest floor ‘The Tree of Legends’.

According to local folklore, in 1409 King Władysław II Jagiełło rested beneath this oak before heading off to fight the Teutonic Knights.

Ławrysz said the evident age of the trunk means the story was unlikely to be true; but that hasn’t stopped the legend enduring.

Sadly, near the end of the walk we came across a memorial to local people killed by the German military occupiers here between 1941 and 1944:

  
That's Poland – both myth and history are never far away. Even in the oldest, deepest forest.

You can learn more about Białowieża National Park at its website: bpn.com.pl.

The Unicycle Diaries 7: The Bison That Time Forgot

After my first Lonely Planet assignment in Poland in winter 2006, I pitched this bison-related story idea to a number of publications. Nothing came of it, but I thought it'd make a good backbone for a picture story here...

I’ve never felt much like Little Red Riding Hood... until this very moment.

Having left the minibus at the turn-off from the road to Białowieża, a small village near Poland’s border with Belarus, I’m trudging along a road caked with thick snow. My footsteps are the only thing audible, though even they are muffled by the crunchy white layer beneath my feet.

It’s the middle of the day, but the sky is a strange muted grey and the bare spindly trees look like extras from The Blair Witch Project. And I know there are wolves in these woods. And I know the European Bison Reserve must be just a kilometre or so ahead. But my hindbrain isn’t so sure this is a good idea...

On my first Lonely Planet assignment in Poland in the midst of winter in 2006, I journeyed through the snowy forest to see the last wild European bison in a reserve near a tiny eastern town. What I discovered was snow, bison, wolves, tarpans and the village that time forgot.

The Unicycle Diaries is an occasional series wherein I use excerpts from diary entries or story pitches to create a snapshot of a past journey. For previous instalments, click on the Unicycle Diaries topic tag below, then scroll down.

Poland 4: Beauty and the Beast

I've just made my latest visit to Białowieża, in Poland's east, and came away with the same confusion I always feel about how the place is marketed to the visitor.

Its famous herds of wild European bison are the focus of tourism to this remote village - but should they presented as a miracle of nature or as the traditional target of the hunter?

To me, the answer seems obvious. To understand why, you need to know a little of the story of this part of Poland.

The Puszcza Białowieska (Białowieża Forest) is the last remnant of the great primeval forest which once covered most of Europe. Nowadays it's split between Poland and Belarus, but for centuries it lay entirely within the Kingdom of Poland.

It was also packed with wildlife, including bison, the cousins of the buffalos we all know from Hollywood Westerns. So Polish kings built hunting lodges here for a bit of sport, and they were followed by the Russian tsars after eastern Poland was swallowed up by the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th century.

These monarchs made some some effort to protect the dwindling bison population even as they hunted them, but in World War I the German army occupied the forest and hunted down nearly all of of the remnant population. By 1919, they were extinct outside zoos.

A sad end for these mighty beasts in their native environment. Impressively though, a conservation program started reintroducing the creatures to the wild in the 1950s, and there are now several hundred bison in the forest. Visitors can enter the Strict Nature Reserve accompanied by a guide, with the chance of spotting bison in their natural state. As a result, Białowieża is a popular destination for tourists year-round.

You would assume, therefore, that the theme of the place would be animal conservation and the harm that hunting and other human activity has done to the natural environment over the centuries.

To some extent it is, and visitors marvel at the forest and the life within it. However, the hotels and restaurants of the village are generally themed in quite a different way. Decked out as mock hunting lodges, decorated with fake bison heads, animal skulls and other hunting memorabila, they seem to glorify the hunting that caused so much harm to the local fauna in the first place.

In one way they're just drawing on history, referencing the Tsar's hunting lodge which was burned down by German troops retreating from the Soviet army in the next world war.

However, it does seem a jarring choice of decor in a 21st century world that's far more sensitive to the harm that humans have done to the environment around them. Also considering that many people are less tolerant of hunting nowadays, seeing it as unnecessarily cruel (while, perhaps hypocritically, remaining tolerant of the breeding and killing of animals in controlled conditions for use as food).

Maybe I'm missing something here; but either way, I always cringe a little when I see the antlers, skulls and heads hanging on the walls of Białowieża venues, right above the animal skin rugs on the wall.

Am I too sensitive? Hypocritical? Misinterpreting some important aspect of the local cultural heritage? Or is the happy juxtaposition of hunting and conservation in Bialowieza just a little bit odd?

Gastro-tourism: Make Mine a Large One

The India Times published a piece last week looking at the unexploited potential of gastro-tourism - food tourism to you and me - in the subcontinent.

Which made me think what a large part food and drink plays in my own travel. One doesn't like to sound greedy by admitting that one has an overt interest in gourmet treats overseas.

But I must admit there's been more than a few foodie highlights in my travels. Off the top of my head:

1. Sipping incredibly potent grappa, an Italian alcoholic drink created from the skins of grapes left over after winemaking. It wasn't the grappa per se, but the fact we were drinking it in San Gimignano, a beautiful hilltop town in Tuscany.

Narrelle and I had wandered away from the tourist haunts, admiring the medieval towers and picture-perfect green countryside below the city walls, when we'd stumbled across a little place that had grappa on the menu.

Wandering around the narrow quiet streets afterward,admiring the architecture while unexpectedly intoxicated from a single glass each, was loads of fun.

2. Drinking żubrówka vodka where the żubry hang out. In the far east of Poland, along the border with Belarus, sits the little village of Białowieża. Once the home of the Russian Tsar's hunting lodge, it's now the gateway to the UNESCO-listed reserve nearby, in which you'll find the only wild herd of European bison.

A bison in Polish is żubr, plural żubry, and they gave their name to the famous żubrówka vodka, which contains a blade of bison grass favoured by the animals. Drinking this in the area associated with it, after eating a traditional dish containing egg, bacon, game meat and mushrooms served up in a frying pan, gave it an extra savour.

3. Sitting at an outdoor table at a restaurant on Easter Island on a Sunday, eating a tuna carpaccio containing fresh raw deep sea tuna. It's about the only dish you can eat fresh on the island, as most other foodstuffs are shipped in from Chile. But again, it was the surroundings that added the extra flavour.

As it was most people's day off on Rapa Nui, there was a soccer game going on in the park opposite, motorbikes zipping around, and young guys galloping their horses up and down the street. And just over to the right, there was one of the island's famous enigmatic statues, perched on a plinth above the fishing port.

In the end, it's not just about eating and drinking, is it? It's about being more deeply embedded in the culture, by enjoying the food and drink the locals do; and maybe understanding their culture a little better beceause of it.