The Shameless Diary of an Explorer (Annotated)

📖 The Scoop

Robert Steed Dunn's classic tale of his participation in an early attempt to summit Denali (Mt. McKinley) in Alaska is far from the run-of-the-mill heroic mountaineering book. Through all of his years of exploration and work as a war correspondent, his writing was typified by raw honesty and a keen eye toward the foibles and follies of man. 

Make no mistake, this account is thrilling. But it's also at times hilarious. The 1903 expedition was small and throughout, Dunn exposes the reality of living with and sharing danger with men who become all too familiar. It reads like a modern Krakauer book. 

Dunn had already been on one very dangerous expedition in 1898. He would go on to explore the Kamchatka River, cover the front lines in World War I for the New York Post, serve as an intelligence officer, and ride with General John "Black Jack" Pershing into Mexico after Pancho Villa. 

Review 
"A classic on exploration. Dunn...alone of them all was an artist for art’s sake" 
--Lincoln Steffens 

"[Dunn was] a man bent on adventure and ready to face the dangers and hardships that adventure brings." 
--The New York Times Book Review 

Amazon.com Review 
More adventure books should be like this. In a genre rife with overbearing machismo and braggadocio, this book, originally published in 1907, is a refreshing and at times hilarious take on exploration. Robert Dunn reveals the bickering and frayed nerves, petty insecurities and trivial jealousies that existed alongside the courage, discipline, and determination exhibited by each member of the 1903 expedition that attempted the first ascent of Alaska's Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. Without downplaying the difficulty of the task, Dunn's honest assessments of the men involved reveals the complex motivations for undertaking arduous exploration and the human weaknesses that are revealed in the process.--Shawn Carkonen

Genre: Sports & Recreation / Mountaineering (fancy, right?)