River of Doubt

A friend of mine recommended a book called River of Doubt by Candice Millard, a former National Geographic writer. The book is a detailed description of a trip that Theodore Roosevelt took down a tributary of the Amazon soon after his loss in the 1912 election. TR was in a funk after the loss and took on the challenge to abate the funk. Roosevelt led an interesting life. But the River of Doubt expedition that he took with Brazilian hero and explorer Col. Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, his son Kermit and group of fellow travelers was one of most interesting.

It is hard to imagine a tougher trip. In part the trip was unexpected, because at the last minute, after they had provisioned for it, they chose to take a much more challenging route. The expedition seems to have been planned to test its participants. But a lot of that test came from lousy planning. First, the planners had little experience in working in the tropics - thus the outfitters loaded them up with a bunch of stuff which would not be very useful for the tough conditions of the trip. Second, the party had a tough string of bad luck. After about the first 30 days they had progressed only about 60 miles from their point of embarcation. They had the wrong kind of boats for the river they were on, for example which slowed them down because porting the dugouts they had was very tough. In the end all of the adventurers survived, except three of the porters.

MIllard is diligent in her detail about the adventure. She describes how tough a trip without goretex and antibiotics would be. The conditions in the Amazon were relentless. Hostile climate, hostile indians, hostile animals and fish, hostile insects. The group ran out of rations in the middle of the trip. They were assaulted by all sorts of insects. Assume for a moment what it would be like to travel in wet moldy clothing for a couple of months. Millard gives you a good idea. The indians in the area were called the Cintalarga (named because of the distinctive large belt the men wore made from a local bark) and were stealthy and fierce. Luckily, for whatever reason, they chose not to mess with the party. Millard describes the fates of other explorers who the tribe chose to engage with.

At the same time, the essentials of treking in 1913 included a lot of things which might not be considered essential in 2006. For example, TR had a full library on this trip. Part of the need for porters was the need to carry all those things. Photos at the start of the expedition show how much stuff the party had. One of their members was a naturalist and thus collecting specimens.

Millard also gives you a good understanding of Roosevelt's co-leader. Rondon, who is pictured above, was a hero in his country. Rondon was indian in origin and came from very humble beginnings. He achieved his position by sheer determination and self discipline . He was a well known positivist who wrote philosophy. He helped to map a good part of the Amazon and was responsible for the establishment of the Brazilian telegraph system.

A few weeks before they got back to civilization, TR was trying to help the group dislodge a couple of their dugouts and gashed his leg. That led to a bacterial infection that almost took the former President's life. He soon lapsed into fever and intense infections. His son Kermit and a the Brazilian doctor on the trip and the naturalist all tried to assure that TR would survive. TR lost 55 pounds (from his original 220) on the trip - which gives you an idea of the challenges he faced. In the end, with a lot of luck the party survived. Several of the participants had dysentary and malaria and all sorts of other disease. That was on top of constant rain and steamy heat.

After TR got back to the states he did some speeches and a book on his adventure. Then before the end of the year (his trip to the River of Doubt lasted until April 1914) he went to Spain for his son Kermit's wedding and out west to meet John Muir (pictured above). He led a very active life.

TR is not one of my favorite presidents. His assumptions about the proper role of government were considerably more expansive than my own. But he was a person who created much of his own reality. Millard does a great job at trying to explain what motivated this very interesting person. She explains the very real tragedies in his life - his first wife and his mother died within about 12 hours of each other. His brother Elliot died of alcoholism. (Looked a lot like TR) His father died of stomach cancer when TR was in college. All of that helped to form the personality who sought out challenges like the trip on the River of Doubt. (By the way, the river is now called the Roosevelt river, in his honor.)

This book reads like a mystery. Millard weaves together a great tale that binds together a great story about a dangerous journey, with all sorts of detail about the region they were visiting, coupled with extensive research on the key players. By the end of the book, you got a great picture of not only the trip but the people.

TR lived until 1919. His son Kermit had many of the same reckless or self challenging characteristics of his father. After Groton and Harvard, he moved to South America and took on his own adventurist history, working in the back country. He died in WWII in Alaska by a self-inflicted gunshot.

River of Doubt is a great book, well worth the read.