Scottish Explorers

William Speirs Bruce: Polar Explorer and... Scottish Nationalist. W S Bruce was one of the foremost polar scientists of the heroic Age of polar exploration, yet remains largely unknown. This biography is written to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902-04. This book aims to bring the name of William Speirs Bruce to the fore once again and to examine the nature of Scotland's forgotten hero.

Journey into Africa: The Life and Death... of Keith Johnston, Scottish Cartographer and Explorer (1844-79). This true and dramatic story begins with the finding of the last expedition diary of a forgotten Edinburgh cartographer, Keith Johnston. The diary was lying in the Royal Geographical Society of Scotland's storeroom and concerns his last, fatal expedition into the interior of Africa. Johnston's family background in 19th-century Edinburgh is described as is the profound influence of his father, one of the great figures in the development of geography and cartography. As curator of maps to the Royal Geographical Society, Keith Johnston became embroiled in the great controversies of the time surrounding Livingstone's claims to finding the source of the Nile. Frustrated with his deskbound job, he conducted a survey of the Paraguayan-Brazil border, where his adventures were to establish his reputation as a competent explorer and ultimately led to his leadership of the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to find a feasible trade route to the central lakes of Africa. The influence of David Livingstone and his tense encounters with H.M. Stanley provide a background to the final fraught relationship with his colleague, Joseph Thomson, during their prolonged stay in Zanzibar. Shortly after the expedition into the interior began, Johnston contracted dysentery and tragically died in the village of Behobeho at the early age of 34.

Mungo Park: Explorer of Africa (Scots'... The remarkable story of the courageous Scottish surgeon who travelled to hitherto unexplored regions of Africa along the River Niger at the end of the 18th century. Surviving fever, robbery and capture, Park wrote about his adventures, bringing a new image of West African life to the European public. Mark Duffill captures the integrity, drive and sense of purpose of the brave explorer in this nail- biting story.

The Tree Collector: The Life and... Explorations of David Douglas. David Douglas was one of the most important botanical collectors there has ever been. Thanks to his heroic and often unimaginably arduous explorations, during which he collected and discovered over 200 species, our forests and gardens are immeasurably richer. Not only is the Douglas fir named after him, but also many of our most established conifers, like the Sitka spruce, Grand and Noble firs and the Monterey pine were introduced to Britain by him. Modern-day suburban gardens would be without the flowering currant, lupin, penstemon, alpines, lilies and primroses had Douglas not travelled so widely. He grew up on the Scone Estate near Perth, studied at the Botanical Gardens in Glasgow under William Hooker, the greatest botanist of the nineteenth century, and then made his name through his remarkable excursions to western Canada - once walking nearly 10,000 miles between the Pacific coast and Hudson Bay. His premature death at just 35 was in keeping with the rest of his life, falling into a wild-animal trap in Hawaii.

Indian Peter: The Extraordinary Life and... Indian Peter is the remarkable story of Peter Williamson, who in 1740 was snatched from an Aberdeen quayside and transported to the burgeoning American colonies to be sold into slavery. He was fortunate to be bought by a humane man who left him money when he died, enabling Peter to buy his own farm after marrying. In 1754, during what became known as the French and Indian War, Peter's farm was attacked and he was captured by the Indians, who forced him to leave his wife and travel with them as a slave. After escaping, he had some sympathy for the Indians and gave evidence in their favour but that did not prevent him joining the British Army to fight the French and their Indian allies. His regiment eventually surrendered and he was taken to Canada as a prisoner of war. Eventually the POWs were exchanged for French prisoners and Williamson found himself free. He made his way back to Scotland and tracked down the men who were behind the slave trade. He accused them publicly and took them to court in a landmark case that exposed the scandal of slave trading. Indian Peter is a true-life adventure of abduction, war and courtroom drama. It is an inspiring tale of courage

Across the Great Divide: Stuart and the... Oregon Trail. This book, drawing on unpublished family letters and journals, tells the story of Robert Stuart's 1812-1813 expedition for the first time. His discovery of the Oregon Trail opened up the West to settlers and ranks as one of the great, untold adventure odysseys of the nineteenth century. In the early 1800s the fur trade was perhaps the largest business in North America with fur trade companies vying for monopoly of the trade in the wilds of America. Stuart, a Scottish immigrant in his late twenties, was a junior partner in John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC) who set off to establish the first American trading colony on the Pacific coast. A year later, Stuart led a seven-man party overland to obtain desperately needed supplies and support from Astor, who had seemingly forgotten them. Travelling from west to east, Stuart and his rag-tag expedition journeyed through uncharted country, enduring near starvation (Stuart had to prevent one man from devouring his weakened companion), illness, Indian attacks, blinding blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures. Nevertheless, due largely to Stuart's courage, restraint and extraordinary endurance, all of the men made it safely back.

The Man Who Saw the Future: William... Inspired by the Dutch traders in the Caribbean and the exploits of buccaneers and pirates, the young Scottish merchant William Paterson envisaged a new era of world commerce and free trade on the open seas unencumbered by the monopoly trading that, in his view, restricted progress.

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