The Shameless Diary of an Explorer

by Robert Dunn

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII LAST STRAWS July 8.--Sh-sh-sh! In two hours we made a large clear stream between high diorite cliffs--the Talushalitna! Every time I leaped behind a horse's pack in fording it, a bunch of them tore back to shore; so I crossed alone on foot, through a hundred tickliest yards of icy water. Then we covered endless meadows and one-pond swamps, purple with iris, golden with arnica. Jack's horses stampeded, and he flew into a passion. Now we slid down grassy benches, to a silty slew, where the bent willows were rustred with glacial mud--from river-floods! Glad omen! But never was reapproach to a river so vanishing: more sloughs and silt flats, a level spruce forest growing from white moss and roses; at last a lead along an endless, gouged drift-pile, and we heard shouts, and saw two tents on a gravel island in the middle of the brown river. The Professor, Miller, and two Siwashes, one big, one little, cavorted across to us in a long boat. Our leader first gravely shook my hand and smiled. "Hello, Dunn," said he (like that prig Stanley's icy, "Mr. Livingstone, I believe?" when he met the missionary in darkest Africa, thought I). "You've done excellently. We arrived here only this morning." Mosquito hats choked all of them. They blind and deafen, and if a man as God made him can't stand the 'skeets, he's no right up in this country. We started to ford, from the south shore to the north. The Bay Dunnage mare was mired in a quicksand and pulled out before we even unpacked and loaded the boat. It was the best place ever for putting in horses to swim, a cut bank they couldn't climb up on their side, a narrow current nearly all in one channel and shooting across diagonally to the other shore, where a long bar stretched below. I crossed to...

Genres: Mountaineering, Adventure, Climbing, Action, Nonfiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Robert Steed Dunn was born in 1877, in Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Harvard University in 1898. After his graduation he traveled the Yukon Trail to the Klondike and upon his return became a journalist. Dunn was a correspondent for the "Commercial Advertiser" under Lincoln Steffen, and was assigned to accompany Cook in his attempt to climb Mount McKinley, Alaska. On this trip he gathered information for his book "Shameless Diary of an Explorer". Other assignments let him to Martinique and on a world cruise with the U. S. Fleet. As a war correspondent Dunn covered the Russo-Japanese War, the naval cruise to Seize Veracruz, and General Pershing's expedition into Mexico against Pancho Villa. During World War I, he was a correspondent for the "New York Post," and wrote "Five Fronts". In 1918, he was commissioned as an officer in the U. S. Navy, and served as an intelligence officer in London and in Constantinople. During his later years, Dunn concentrated on horticulture and writing. He wrote two published novels "Youngest World" and "Horizon Fever," as well as a book of verse "And Least Love". His autobiography "World Alive" was published after his death in 1956. Dunn died in Katonah, NY in 1955.

Reviews

[Amerynth · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Shameless Diary of an Explorer" is Robert Dunn's account of his travels with the inept Frederick Cook as his team attempted to climb Denali, North America's highest peak, for the first time.

The book is fascinating as a no holds barred account of a bumbling expedition and an illustration of Cook's failure to be a leader. (Cook later claimed, in now discredited accounts, to be the first to climb Denali and reach the North Pole.) The book is really readable and really interesting.

The low rating, for me, is due to two factors that made this a really difficult read for me. The first being Dunn's antisemitism toward another member of the expedition. The second being the sheer brutality toward the pack horses. Without these elements, this book would have been a good read.

[Mattw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, in some ways a tough one to cop to reading, in that the author is, besides an explorer, a casual, consistent anti-semite throughout. Dunn is also shameless in a charmingly biting fashion while describing how the expedition (of which he was part, but not leader) bumbled about Denali. Worth reading for its description of the monotony of exploring, with dashes of insight into the hucksterism of the "explorer". A lighter, less noble counterpart to _The Worst Journey In The World_.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

An account of a failed 1903 expedition to summit Mount McKinley--and a pretty darn entertaining one, at that. Dunn was big on telling the truth no matter how unflattering it might be, and so his diary really shows all the exasperation that he and his companions felt with one another, all their ineptitude and poor planning, and includes no rationalizations about how their failure still meant something because they strived their hardest or whatever. He was also an unappologetic anti-semite, who blamed pretty much any negative quality he saw in 21-year-old Simon on his race. So, you know, this was really interesting, especially when compared with most other accounts written by adventurers and explorers during that time. There's lots of gossip and bickering and back-biting and grumbling and glee at others' misfortunes, and it's pretty clear that these men rarely felt much respect for anyone in their party. Not exactly a book to inspire, but the tale is compellingly told, and these men all come across as real people, and not the usual cardboard cutout noble adventurers of most accounts!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many accounts of exploration/adventure don't present the mundane, the frustration and the pettiness. Dunn's diary lays out the bickering between the explorers as they slog through their days. An often cold, wet, "beans & biscuits" existence just to get near their goal of Mt McKinley. This book must have been a departure from the ego driven accounts (and fabrications) of many explorers of the early 20th century.

[Marcella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty honest about how much they all sucked. I'm still shocked that no one died.

I guess I enjoy reading all the logistic details of trudging through Alaska, although the constant anti-Semitism really put me off.

[Sarah]

From the far-off lands of a North Carolina bookshop...