Your favourite explorer

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Tommyd345

Nomad
Feb 2, 2015
369
4
Norfolk
Ahoy!

So I'm filling out an application form for wood lore, and one of the questions is 'who is your favourite explorer past or present'. And I thought, what a good thread that could be!

Now my answer is still in the phrasing, i don't really know any explorers, but aviation has ALWAYS been a big passion of mine so I'm thinking along the lines of the Wright brothers or the test pilots in WWII.

Anyway let's have em!
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
-Admiral Richard Byrd
-Jacques Cousteau
-Captain James Cook
-Louis and Clark

Too many to settle on just one.
 

Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
2,422
614
Knowhere
17th Century Cabeza de Vaca, an amazing story of capture by the native Americans and life amongst them.
18th Century James Cook (to be honest I don't know any other explorers from this era).
19th Century William Scoresby (another Yorkshireman), Lady Jane Franklin, twice the man her husband was.
20th Century Cherry Garrard, "the worst journey in the world".
Still with us today, Michael Asher following in the footsteps of Wilfred Thesiger.
 

cranmere

Settler
Mar 7, 2014
992
2
Somerset, England
Gosh,what a very male list!

Isabella Bird
Kate Rice
Kira Salak
Christina Dodwell
Grandma Gatewood

Go on, how many of those did you recognise? And how many of them surprised you by being at least as adventurous as the better known men?
 

Laurentius

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 13, 2009
2,422
614
Knowhere
Gosh,what a very male list!

Isabella Bird
Kate Rice
Kira Salak
Christina Dodwell
Grandma Gatewood

Go on, how many of those did you recognise? And how many of them surprised you by being at least as adventurous as the better known men?

Ok I will own up that I don't know any of them, but at least I included Lady Franklin in my list, she was one among many formidable 19th century female explorers, she is mostly known today for her obsessive search for her missing husband, it is a wonder why she married such an incompetent, she was possibly the most travelled woman of the 19th century. Here is another for you Lucy Walker a lady alpinist of the 1800's who summitted the matterhorn in an ankle length skirt!
 

demographic

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 15, 2005
4,691
710
-------------
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Amundsen yet.

Yeah, was just going to.
Had a download of his book The South Pole and it was absolutely brilliant. Well thought out and planned.
Sorry to say but it made Scott and his merry bunch look like monkeys.

Also Fridtjof Nansen (who had The Fram before Admunsen).
 

Lizz

Absolute optimist
May 29, 2015
352
2
Cardiff
For scientific rigour give me Scott; for efficiency in planning, Amundson; and when all hope is gone get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.

So said Priestley, and for South Pole explorers these three are pretty cool.

I'd also go for Dame Freya Stark who was a-maz-ing and possibly slightly mad, which helped.

And for a long time ago - Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo!
 

The Ratcatcher

Full Member
Apr 3, 2011
268
0
Manchester, UK
David Thompson in Canada and John McDouall Stuart in Australia. both surveyors, but being a navigator, I'm biased in favour of map makers.

Cranmere, I recognised Christina Dodwell, as her book "An Explorers Handbook" is on my bookshelf.
 

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