100 books like Down the Great Unknown

Theodore Roosevelt's equally courageous descent of an unknown tributary of the Amazon. What drew me to the book was the fact that the former President, no longer a young man, went through an incredibly hostile environment. Living in Louisiana, I have explored and indeed become lost in several large swamps, but none like this one. And none with no possibility of rescue. At points like this in a book, I am thinking, what would I do in the tight fix they were facing? Guessing ahead.

And then it was the boats. Unable to ram larger vessels through the jungle, they settled for dugout canoes that were inherently unstable, yet more so when carrying their gear. Yet they had to run very fast water at times, over unseen obstacles, and managed to survive the turnovers. The jungle itself became the enemy. It provided little food to eat, vegetables or animals, and… show more.

I love a writer who is willing to put his life at risk to solve a mystery. And I love history and biography. The mystery? What happened to Glen and Bessie Hyde, a young couple who vanished on their honeymoon while trying to run the length of the canyon in 1928 in a scow—a boat that looked like a water trough.

Dimock, a Grand Canyon guide and builder of wooden dories, researched this type of craft and, together with his wife, braved the rapids because he thought this would provide clues about the disappearance. Having rowed unwieldy baggage boats in the canyon myself, I emphasized with their plight, and the story of the honeymooners is one guides often tell the clients sitting in camp chairs in the after-dinner circle.  

I once dislocated a shoulder while crossing the canyon’s Thunder River raging with snowmelt; another time, I got lost on the Paria Plateau, separated from my pack, and spent a miserable night in a tee-shirt and shorts while thunder and lightning scared the Bejesus out of me. So, these tales of death and disaster compiled by two canyon veterans cut close to the bone.

They’re not depressing reading, surprisingly. There are accounts of amazing survival, and much can be learned from these cases to avoid getting yourself into trouble. Not something most readers will read cover to cover, but I did and dip into it still on occasion.

I love the artwork: funny, pictograph-style vignettes of the different ways you can die in the canyon (many more than you’d think). 

Having attempted my own Grand Canyon thru-hike, on the largely trail-less north side of the Colorado River, I have walked in Fletcher’s shoes, metaphorically speaking. Mine started to come apart—with their soles delaminating—on day 1; before the end of day 40, I had to have a replacement pair brought in. Those pinched, and I lost toenails.

Beyond the minutiae of long-distance backpacking, the Welsh author of this classic of outdoor literature makes plenty of room for contemplation. At the end of a long, hot, hard, blistering day, I, too, spent many an hour perched on the rim, with a glimpse of the river far below, pondering my role in the grand scheme of things. Then it was always on to supper, which never has tasted better.

Even the most perfect pictures simply cannot do the canyon justice—none of mine ever have. But the photographic montages of Klett and Wolfe come close; fusing historical shots with contemporary ones they took at the same location, from the same angle, they manage to show what impresses me most in the grand gorge: its timelessness, how little the geology and even the vegetation changes over decades.

This really puts human life into perspective. The images in this coffee table book for the discerning are daring, whimsical, playful, and experimental, all of which are qualities that the best guides and canyoneers display.

This may be the most charming book about canoeing I know. Largely because it covered so much ground and so many rivers, almost randomly, and because my wife and I found its protagonist to be a once-in-a-lifetime individual.  Which happened to be what everyone he encountered thought too.

By way of background, he had never paddled before. But he had exploring on his mind, and a canoe was the easiest way to carry gear. He had been a Navy veteran, a nurse, and a brilliant student who consumed history and science like an omnivore. We get to know him through his often-daily journal entries, his letters back to his family and a young woman he had met, and the recollections of the people he ran into in remote places and treated him with fondness and wonder. A raconteur without equal, he left his mark in bars, laundromats, and grocery stores,… show more.

Six experienced American whitewater kayakers took on what was perhaps the last river few had ever seen, and no one had fully run. It ran down from the high mountains of India, and their timing could not have been worse. After two weeks of heavy rain, even the upstream section was over its banks and running at near-turnpike speed. 

The skill levels of these six men were at the top of the game. They had won awards in kayak competitions, and had run everything difficult they could find in North America. I have no love of kayaking. Rather, I enjoy sitting higher in a canoe where I can see things over the banks around me, and can always bail-out and swim if I flip. However, at least for me, canoeing this water at this level would be suicide. 

Similar to the Grand Canyon at the time of Powell, it ran… show more.

This is a book I related to closely because I have paddled in northern Canada for weeks at a time and am well aware of the biting black flies, wind in your face, and fickle weather. 

It tells the story of a 600-mile paddle from a camp along the Canadian border that trained wilderness paddlers, starting as young as twelve. This trip was the capstone of the camp's training and consisted of six late-teenagers and one experienced guide. The trip faced many unexpected challenges, including ice flows and packs of slush too thick to go through but too soft to wade on. As usual, I am experiencing these obstacles right along with them and assessing the options. With considerable ingenuity, the boys manage to push and drag the canoes, fully loaded with gear, through the pack and keep going. In one stretch, it rained for four days in a row.… show more.

Nathaniel Farrell Brodie’s Steel on Stone takes readers into Grand Canyon National Park. Here, Brodie worked on trails for eight seasons during brutal summer heat and cold winters. Brodie explores not just the national park in its beauty and danger but also the park’s history, tales from the park, and other adventures. In the end, Steel on Stone beautifully ruminates on home and on Brodie’s love of this landscape.

I’m obsessed with time—how to define it, the way it reshapes all things, the sheer immensity of it. Rocks are our only link to Earth’s deep past, and we rely on the stories rocks tell to understand our planet’s history.

This nonfiction picture book offers a detailed introduction to the geology and ecology of one of Earth’s great natural wonders, showcasing the Grand Canyon’s distinct ecological communities and explaining its formation.

As a parent and child hike the canyon, we explore it alongside them, and through momentary leaps back in time, we see how the landscape and its inhabitants have changed over the course of more than 1 billion years.