Rainforests by Nancy F. Castaldo

Author:Nancy F. Castaldo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2003-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Roosevelts, Jungle Explorers

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States. After his presidency he led an expedition into the jungles of South America, which had never been mapped. His explorations added 900 miles of the Amazon to the map. Accompanying him were Frank Chapman, curator of ornithology (birds) for the American Museum of Natural History; his friend, Father Zahm; his son Kermit; two scientists that Chapman recommended; and quite a few journalists. The expedition was planned to concentrate on the birds and mammals of the jungle. The explorers traveled deep into the uncharted Amazon wilderness and saw things that only the Amazon natives had seen before.

Teddy Roosevelt’s expedition was an amazing trip for that time and took a great deal of courage. They traveled with canoes, provisions for only 40 days, and little else. When they needed more canoes they made dugout canoes from trees they cut down on the trip. He wrote about his trip in the book Through the Brazilian Wilderness. It is still considered one of the great masterpieces among explorers’ records.

In 1992, Tweed Roosevelt, Teddy’s great-grandson, re-created the famous trip undertaken in 1913. He had a much easier time, traveling with lightweight boats, insect repellent, modern medicine, nourishing food, accurate maps, communication equipment, and water filtration systems. He found that much of the jungle remained as it had been 78 years before, and yet he saw that civilization had crept in as well. When Teddy Roosevelt visited the region, many of the natives had never seen anyone who lived outside their forest. Now some of them wear clothes made elsewhere and even hunt with guns.

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