I’ve been asked to do some posters for a set of online guides. For poster graphics I want to do famous guides for each one (all signage on a college campus needs graphics if you expect anybody to read it and a screencap won’t cut it) but only two come immediately to mind: Sacagawea and Tenzing Norgay.
Can you think of any other famous or at least very interesting guides? They can be good or bad. (I could use the Donner Party with a “sometimes you need a guide” caption.)
I was going to suggest Stephen Meek as well. The Meek party has one claim to fame in addition to getting hopelessly lost…they are said to have located - and subsequently re-lost the legendary Blue Bucket Mine.
Among other incompetent guides, I would nominate Alferd (You are what you eat) Packer, who got his party of prospectors lost in the Colorado Rockies and survived the winter by consuming his companions.
An African guide who worked with Speke, Burton and Stanley, and in terms of sheer mileage, probably outdid all three of them. Also, had an awesome name.
The exploration of Australia was largely made possible by Aboriginal guides, but history has not lionised them as it has people like Sacagawea. Their native names are hardly recalled, and they are known as “Dick”, “Charley”, “Jacki jacki”, and so on. This is a great sorrow, but their stories remain true, nevertheless. This is from a NSW govt site:
Aboriginal pathways enabled explorers and settlers to move through the high country, allowing pastoralism, mining, forestry and a range of other uses. It is thought many of the major highways of contemporary New South Wales are based on traditional Aboriginal paths, including the Snowy Mountains Highway and Monaro Highway, and the Bell’s Line of Road. Many exploration parties used Aboriginal guides. Explorers in the Tinderry Nature Reserve area south-east of Canberra are an example. As a result, traditional patterns of Aboriginal movement across and along NSW high country were mirrored by settler Australians.