# Who're your favourite explorers? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 7, 2016, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499 "2016-02-07T23:46:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/21 "2016-02-08T10:41:17Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I’m not sure what I did; but wasn’t it clever? I thought your comment was backhandedly pointing out that having Pike’s Peak named after you is a singular achievement for an explorer. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/22 "2016-02-08T10:59:05Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > [Percy Fawcett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Fawcett), British explorer obsessed with South America and the fabled gold city of El Dorado. Impervious to diseases that killed explorers by the drove, the man finally fell victim to one of the jungle tribes. I have a great liking for Fawcett: he was weird, but came out with much highly fascinating stuff. Heaven forgive me, I occasionally entertain the odd doubt as to the truth of everything which he tells of experiencing. In my childhood, our house had the book _Exploration Fawcett_, a compilation of PF’s accounts of his expeditions and inspirations for fresh ones. As a kid, I read it and found it riveting; it was the origin of my lifelong affection for the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Nefario](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/59ef9b/32.png) [@Nefario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nefario)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/23 "2016-02-08T12:46:38Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’m pretty sure I’ve never read a book about Boone. Do you have a recommendation? Not meaning to hijack but [here’s an interesting read](http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/dboonhut.html) about the country Boone explored with some references. I’ve hiked to this site and live a few miles from Fort Boonesborough. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/24 "2016-02-08T12:57:11Z")
Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Another one who’d rather trade and talk than fight (although if the fight went to him he had no problems drawing), at one point he was based on what is now the Caribbean coast of Panama. The local garrison had heard that there was another sea over the mountains, but details were vague; some of the expeditions organized to search for it were along lines that make one wonder what were they thinking (“let’s follow this river which ends here, see if we find a different sea that way”… uhm… I know the concept of “water basins” might not even have had a name at the time, but come on, “slopes” had already been invented). Balboa discovered his South Sea (later renamed Pacific by Magalhaes); in a later expedition he repeated the trip carrying the structures for a couple of ships, loaded them on mules and a team which included several guys with experience as ship carpenters (enough to assemble the frames and get the rest of the materials from any half-decent trees). Got killed by the governor that replaced him in the area shortly after the discovery expedition, talk about cutthroat politics. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/25 "2016-02-08T16:21:11Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I came in here to nominate this pair as well. Funny that the only person to survive the expedition (King) is never mentioned much. > > If you can get your hands on a book called “Dig” by a bloke called Frank Clunes, have a gander at it. It’s a riveting read. 🙂 I enjoyed the account of the Burke and Wills expedition in _Cooper’s Creek_ by Alan Moorehead. Another interesting explorer of Australia was the Prussian [Ludwig Leichhardt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Leichhardt), whose disappearance on his last expedition remains a mystery. He inspired the novel _Voss_ by Patrick White. > [@Sangahyando](#): > > In my childhood, our house had the book _Exploration Fawcett_, a compilation of PF’s accounts of his expeditions and inspirations for fresh ones. As a kid, I read it and found it riveting; it was the origin of my lifelong affection for the guy. I have a copy of that. It has some amazingly cheesy illustrations like this one of an [anaconda](http://www.rubberboomgame.com/img/inspiration/FawcettShootingAnaconda.jpg) and this of a [confrontation with bestial natives.](http://www.phfawcettsweb.org/apeman1.jpg) > [@Nava](#): > > Got killed by the governor that replaced him in the area shortly after the discovery expedition, talk about cutthroat politics. Balboa is also interesting because he arrived in Panama as a stowaway, and soon became leader of the remnants of two colonizing expeditions by sheer force of personality. His problem was that he had no royal authority so Pedrarias (Pedro Arias Davila) was sent to take over the colony. He had Balboa executed on trumped up charges. Ironically, although Pedrarias founded Panama City there is not one single street or monument named after him in the entire country. (There is a small bust at the museum at Panama Viejo, the ruins of the city he founded.) Instead, everything from major streets to the currency to the most popular beer are named after his victim. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/26 "2016-02-08T16:41:32Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Years ago, I became a huge fan of [Roand Amundsen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen). My choice as well. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/27 "2016-02-08T16:51:26Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’m pretty sure I’ve never read a book about Boone. Do you have a recommendation? Most of what I read are more the primary sources, pulling pieces here and there, but for Dan’l I always recommend “Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer” by John Mack Faragher and “Frontiersman-Daniel Boone And The Making Of America” by Meredith Mason Brown. The latter uses a lot of the early books and newly-found sources as a base and then fills in from newer research. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/28 "2016-02-08T17:51:19Z")
Can’t argue with any of the above, and I would add Captain Cook, who while doing a lot for navigation and cartography, also did his share of exploring. I’ve always held a soft spot for John Colter, [John Colter - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colter) , since as a young kid I remember a Disney song (sung by Fess Parker, IIRC) about him and especially about his “Colter’s Run” (the song was Disney-fied, but it’s still a dramatic story either way). And son-of-a-gun, the song is actually on You Tube!! [THE BALLAD OF JOHN COULTER by Fess Parker - 1956 Disneyland Record - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAUgMtzYgI0#t=33) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/29 "2016-02-08T18:11:51Z")
Captain James Cook. Australia and the South Pacific are fascinating places to me. Vitus Bering. His expeditions give us some mysterious creatures for cryptozoologists to wonder about. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/30 "2016-02-08T18:27:54Z")
Again I say, Shackleton! Most hated: Richard Byrd ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/31 "2016-02-08T18:50:05Z")
Cassini-Huygens, although Voyager 2 is a close second. New Horizons is still in the running, and of course Juno is still en route. I’m still hoping for a Jupiter Icy Moons mission and something like the proposed Titan Saturn System Mission. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/32 "2016-02-08T19:00:53Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I enjoyed the account of the Burke and Wills expedition in _Cooper’s Creek_ by Alan Moorehead. Alan Moorehead is a god. His two books about Africa exploration, _White Nile_ and _Blue Nile_, are fascinatingly informative; they read like an Indiana Jones adventure. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/33 "2016-02-08T20:10:40Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Oh, definitely [Robert Falcon Scott](http://http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/scott.htm). “The Americans love a success; the British love a noble failure.” > > Second place would go to [Sir John Franklin](http://https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition), who expired horribly at the OTHER end of the world. Both complete and utter incompetents who killed their own men thru poor leadership and planning. Scott was hardly a “noble failure”. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/34 "2016-02-08T20:11:40Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Alan Moorehead is a god. His two books about Africa exploration, _White Nile_ and _Blue Nile_, are fascinatingly informative; they read like an Indiana Jones adventure. Yes, and of the two Blue Nile is the better. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/35 "2016-02-08T20:44:48Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > In my childhood, our house had the book _Exploration Fawcett_, a compilation of PF’s accounts of his expeditions and inspirations for fresh ones. As a kid, I read it and found it riveting; it was the origin of my lifelong affection for the guy. > [@Colibri](#): > > I have a copy of that. It has some amazingly cheesy illustrations like this one of an [anaconda](http://www.rubberboomgame.com/img/inspiration/FawcettShootingAnaconda.jpg) and this of a [confrontation with bestial natives.](http://www.phfawcettsweb.org/apeman1.jpg) The “bestial natives” picture is indeed a gem. I wonder whether it represents the (if my memory serves correctly) Maricoxi tribe. Again IIRC, he was somewhere in the forest in the Brazil / Bolivia borderlands: stayed for a spell with the Maxubi tribe, who were nice, hospitable, gentle types. They warned him against the neighbouring Maricoxi, whom they described as vicious, ape-like, cannibalistic and, well, thoroughly bestial. Fawcett and his party of course insisted on pushing on and encountering – fleetingly at least – the Maricoxi, who indeed proved to be just as described. Perhaps fortunately (whether for preservation of their lives, or to save Fawcett from needing to make up further “stretchers”) the expeditionaries learned around this time, of the outbreak of World War I, so felt duty-bound to head immediately for civilisation and thence to Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/36 "2016-02-08T20:57:15Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Vitus Bering. His expeditions give us some mysterious creatures for cryptozoologists to wonder about. Percy Fawcett, a favourite of mine as per other posts here, also provides some cryptozoology-fodder in his writings. As per the Wiki link in **Chefguy** ’s post, some snakes of prodigious size; and “a small cat-like dog the size of a foxhound”, the _mitla_. He also reports a couple of very strange and, I think, as yet unrecognised-by-science birds. No mention by him that I recall, however, of Amazonia’s seeming Bigfoot / Yeti eqivalents(s): the terrifying and ferocious _mapinguary_, suggested as having characteristics of a giant ape-man, and/or a relict giant ground sloth. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/37 "2016-02-08T21:20:53Z")
Yes, Fawcett is great as well, I just wanted to add someone to the thread who had not yet been mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/38 "2016-02-08T21:25:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, and of the two Blue Nile is the better. By far. I haven’t read them in a number of years, but I seem to recall that White Nile was somewhat dedicated to Gordon and the Sud, while Blue Nile covered the exhausting search for the headwaters. I agree on Franklin, although many very good explorers met with a similar fate. Vilhjalmur Steffanson was worse, IMO; a man who should have known better, yet who sent the Karluk crew to its doom in the Arctic. The only survivor, an Inuit woman named Ada Blackjack, managed to survive on her own for two years on Wrangell Island before finally being rescued. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/39 "2016-02-08T21:27:24Z")
Cook and Burton. Everybody else is a lesser actor. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499/40 "2016-02-08T21:37:09Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Alan Moorehead is a god. His two books about Africa exploration, _White Nile_ and _Blue Nile_, are fascinatingly informative; they read like an Indiana Jones adventure. Agreed. A couple of my other favorite explorers involved in the search for the source of the Nile were the team of [Sir Samuel Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Baker) and his wife [Florence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Baker), a Hungarian orphan who became a slave, explored the Nile and died an English Lady. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whore-your-favourite-explorers/745499.md?page=3)