Category: Explorers

Move Over, Marco Polo!

1/19/2023

Jim Whiting

The Running Encyclopedia

Ibn Buttuta

You’ve probably heard of Marco Polo, who left his hometown of Venice, Italy in 1271 as a teenager and traveled for the next 24 years. He spent most of his time in China, where he became an advisor to the country’s ruler Kublai Khan. He published The Travels of Marco Polo in 1300 and it became an instant best-seller.

Four years later Ibn Battuta, who became known as the “Muslim Marco Polo,” was born in Tangier, Morocco.

When he was about 21 he undertook the hajj, the trip to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula. During the month he stayed there following a two-year journey, he heard fascinating tales of far-flung lands from his fellow pilgrims. Rather than returning home to the career as a lawyer that awaited him, Ibn Battuta decided to see those lands.

He joined a camel caravan to Persia. From there he went to Africa, then to Asia. He crossed hot deserts and snow-covered mountain passes. He survived bandit attacks and voyages on stormy and pirate-infested seas. He enjoyed long periods of living in luxury, as well as other periods of soul-crushing poverty.

He finally returned home to discover that his parents were dead. So he crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to visit the remnants of Islamic Spain. Then, at the “request” of the sultan of Morocco, who wanted to establish trade relations with the mighty Muslim empire of Mali, West Africa, Ibn Battuta toured that region for nearly three years. He came back to Morocco for good in 1354, ending 29 years of traveling. During that time, he covered about 75,000 miles. By contrast, Marco Polo’s journeys encompassed roughly 15,000 miles over a 24-year period.

Like Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta published an account of his travels, A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling, more commonly called the Rihla (or “Journey”). He spent his remaining years before his death in 1368 as a judge—finally involved with the legal career he had avoided so many years earlier.

Ibn Battuta started on his travels when he was 21 years old in 1325. He traveled about 29 years, covering about 75,000 miles and visiting the equivalent of 44 modern countries. This map shows Battuta's travels compared to those of his famous contemporary, Marco Polo.

Ibn Battuta in Egypt, an illustration by Léon Benett from a book by Jules Verne published in 1878.

Ibn Battuta visiting the steppes -- the grassy lands of the nomadic Golden Horde. (When Genghis Khan died he divided the Mongol Empire into four "khanates" for his sons and grandsons. The Golden Horde was the northwestern khanate, including much of Eastern Europe and Russia). Picture Source: “Ibn Battuta, Prince of Travelers” National Geographic Magazine, Dec. 1991.

If you would like to learn a lot more about Ibn Battuta, click here to go to a website that includes student activities.
And, if you would like to learn more about author Jim Whiting, click here to go to his website. He has a great new series on the NFL Today, with a book about each of the teams.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "Move Over, Marco Polo." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 3 Nov. 2017.

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To the Ends of the Earth

1/4/2023

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Jim Whiting
The Running Encyclopedia

In the early 1900s, becoming the first to reach the South Pole was a huge source of individual and national pride. English explorer Ernest Shackleton came within 97 miles of that goal in 1909 before being forced to turn back.

Fellow Englishman Robert Scott made well-publicized plans to succeed where Shackleton had failed. He was therefore dismayed to learn that Norwegian Roald Amundsen had his own secret plan to reach the Pole. Amundsen hadn’t even told his crew members where they were going until they were at sea.

The two expeditions landed in Antarctica at roughly the same time and spent months preparing for their respective treks. Amundsen departed on October 18, 1911. He was fortunate to encounter relatively good weather. On December 7, he passed the southernmost point Shackleton had reached. One week later, on December 14, he and his four men stood on the South Pole. Each man grasped the Norwegian flag. They celebrated in the evening with seal meat and cigars. Before returning, they erected a tent and put letters for Scott and Norwegian King Haakon inside. Amundsen and his men arrived back at their starting point in late January and sailed to Tasmania, where Amundsen sent a cable trumpeting his accomplishment. Even though the response was mostly favorable, some people in England thought Amundsen had played a dirty trick by being so secretive about his plans.

Meanwhile, Scott and his four men left from their base three weeks after Amundsen. They encountered some of the worst weather Antarctica could throw at them. Several times they had to stay in their tents for extended periods, eating valuable food. They finally arrived at the Pole on January 17, only to have their triumph replaced with bitter disappointment. They found Amundsen’s letters and knew they were five weeks too late.

Their difficulties worsened on the way back. Two men died from cold, hunger, and exhaustion. Scott and the two others made what proved to be their final camp on March 19, confined to their tent by horrific weather. They were about 10 miles from a food depot that would have ensured their survival, but couldn’t reach it. Searchers found their frozen bodies eight months later.

Amundsen died in 1928 in a plane crash during a rescue mission in the Arctic Ocean. Shortly before his death, he told a journalist, “If only you knew how splendid it is up here, that’s where I want to die.”

Can you guess which portrait is of the free-wielding Roald Amundsen and which is the careful planner Robert Scott ? Hint: Credit for the photo at the left is National Library of Norway.

Amundsen's group admires their victory display as they prepare to leave the South Pole.

And here is Scott's party arriving at the Pole. What disappointment for them to reach the end of the earth only to find this tent topped by the Norwegian flag waiting for them.

Map showing the polar journeys of the Scott's expedition (green) and Amundsen's expedition (red) to reach the South Pole. Wikimedia Commons

Aristotle discovered Antarctica nearly 2,500 years ago, though no one set foot on the continent until the 1800s. Exploration went into high gear several decades later during the Heroic Age. The peak came in 1911 when Norwegian Roald Amundsen reached the Pole, followed soon afterward by the tragic deaths of Englishman Robert Scott and four companions. This is one of many of Jim Whiting's books.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "To the Ends of the Earth." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 18
Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
To-the-Ends-of-the-Earth.

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Did the Hero Dog Survive?

4/20/2021

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Laurence Pringle

celebrating nature, inspiring good writing

In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and a team of men on a vital mission to explore the wild, unmapped West.

Lewis brought his dog along. According to journals kept by several of the explorers, the dog helped a lot. He retrieved animals that had been shot for food. He scared away grizzly bears, and a bull bison that charged into camp.

The old journal pages are often hard to read, and this led to a misunderstanding of the dog's name. People thought that he was called Scannon. Not until 1985 did a historian carefully examine every mention of the dog. He found that Lewis had actually named the dog Seaman. The dog was a Newfoundland, a breed often kept on ships. They are great swimmers, and could save people from drowning.

In the expedition's journals, Seaman was last mentioned in July, 1806, two months before the explorers returned from the West and reached the little town of St. Louis on the Mississippi River. After that, there is no word about the dog in letters or reports written by Lewis, Clark, or others.

The mystery of what happened to Seaman was solved in the year 2000, thanks to the work of historian James Holberg. He had found a book, written in 1814 by historian Timothy Alden, which told of a little museum in Virginia. Alden found a dog collar displayed there that William Clark had given to the museum. On the collar were these words: "The greatest traveller of my species. My name is SEAMAN, the dog of captain Meriwether Lewis, whom I accompanied to the Pacifick ocean through the interior of the continent of North America."

The collar was later destroyed by fire, but in his 1814 book Timothy Alden also wrote further details about Seaman. Historians report that after the expedition, Meriwether Lewis' life became one of failure and despair. In October 1809 he took his own life. Alden wrote that Seaman was there when Lewis was buried, and "refused to take every kind of food, which was offered to him, and actually pined away and died with grief upon his master's grave."

People who know Newfoundland dogs say that this could be true, because these dogs are fiercely loyal to their owners. Unless historians find some new evidence, that is how the life of this great dog hero ended.

Meriwether Lewis (left) and William Clark

Eugene L. Daub's 2000 sculpture group on Quality Hill in Kansas City, Missouri includes figures of York, the slave who accompanied Lewis and Clarke on the expedition, and the Newfoundland dog Seaman.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May 1804, from near St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. Seaman was along on every bit of the round trip expedition of over seven thousand miles. However, like the explorers, he traveled many of those miles on a keel boat or canoe--up the Missouri and other rivers, downstream to the Pacific Ocean, and then the return journey to St. Louis in 1806.

Laurence Pringle has written a book about Seaman. This richly detailed account of the Lewis and Clark expedition includes its planning, its adventures and discoveries, and its aftermath. With intriguing sidebars, historical illustrations, journal excerpts, and original art, this account of what became known as the Corps of Discovery features the remarkable dog that was the expedition's most unusual member. For more information click here.

MLA 8 Citation
Pringle, Laurence. "Did the Hero Dog Survive?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think
Tank, 29 Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
did-the-hero-dog-survive.

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Move Over, Marco Polo!

To the Ends of the Earth

Did the Hero Dog Survive?

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