Your favourite explorer

[Tommyd345]

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]

-Admiral Richard Byrd
-Jacques Cousteau
-Captain James Cook
-Louis and Clark

Too many to settle on just one.

 

[John Fenna]

Dr John Rae
Shackleton
Lewis and Clarke
Speke

 

[neoaliphant]

Bruce Parry

 

[crosslandkelly]

Sir Richard Burton.
Robert Rogers.
Sir Edmund Hillary.

 

[Wayne]

Sir Richard Burton.
Robert Rogers.
Sir Edmund Hillary.

Sir Richard Francis Burton has to be my first choice. The man lived a interesting life.
Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Francis Drake
Magellan
Lewis and Clarke.

All knowledge is based on those that went before.

 

[forrestdweller]

nicolai mikoucho-maklai and grandpa smurf

 

[Tiley]

Wilfred Thesiger
Eric Shipton
Bill Tillman
Nansen

 

[bilmo-p5]

Douglas Mawson

 

[Tengu]

Maurice Wilson

 

[steve a]

Percy Fawcett
Wally Herbert
Blashford Snell

 

[Laurentius]

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]

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?

 

[Harvestman]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Amundsen yet.

 

[Laurentius]

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]

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]

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!

 

[rik_uk3]

At the moment its Samuel Hearne but it changes all the time.

 

[The Ratcatcher]

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.

 

[British Red]

Thor Heyerdahl