It’s been a few weeks since I posted a new blog. And while there’s no excuse for leaving you hanging, I can honestly say there wasn’t an internet connection for at least 800km… I’ve been in the Sahara for most of the past month, on an expedition to one of the least inhabited regions of the desert. Our target was Jebel Uweinat, an isolated mountain range that sits right on the border of...
I’ve done a number of expeditions by camel — both dromedary and Bactrian. And I like to think I’m fairly well read in the lore of this noble beast. Well, I learned a pile of new camel facts yesterday when I cracked open the cover of Camel by Robert Irwin. This is a fascinating read for anyone who is the least bit curious about the natural world. Irwin doesn’t just discuss the camel’s unique...
My latest magazine feature just hit newsstands. You can find it in Chapters, Coles and other bookstores across Canada, and in select international magazine stores in the United States. Congrats to Tomoko Goto for landing the cover photo on her first feature assignment. It’s a story of adventure, exploration, close animal encounters and more. I don’t remember where I first heard about Namibia...
I’ve got Namibia on the brain these past few days. I just finished writing photo captions for a story about a self-drive trip I did last December. It’ll be the main feature in the next issue of Outpost magazine. Driving my own Land Rover Defender all over Namibia definitely ranks up there with the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was free to explore the desert at my own pace. I was self-contained...
If you’re on my email list, you know I was planning to spend part of October trekking a remote plateau in Algeria. Well, Algeria’s one of those countries most people need a visa to enter. I’ve heard getting one in person requires a healthy dose of table pounding and beady eyed stares. Getting one from a distance is an even more impressive comedy of errors. It goes a little something like...
Tom Sheppard’s 40 years of overlanding experience make him one of the world’s foremost experts on desert travel. Among the highlights, he’s tackled six solo Sahara expeditions since 2001, and he led the first coast to coast crossing of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, which won him an award from the Royal Geographical Society. Sheppard’s gift for writing about...
A lone mud-spattered researcher in torn khaki pants and sweat-stained sleeveless t-shirt kneels in the dirt in front of a makeshift shelter, carefully injecting formalin into a toad to halt the onset of decay. Tiny sweat bees cloud around her head, crawling into her nose and ears and getting into the corners of her eyes. She’s so concentrated on her work that she barely notices them...
My latest magazine feature has just hit newsstands across Canada and select international magazine stores in the United States. It’s the main feature and cover story: an exploration of time, culture and change, and of two completely seperate worldviews which have coexisted in Egypt for centuries. Alexandria, a Hellenistic city, has always looked towards the Mediterranean, while the rest of...
To me, a library has always been a sacred place. I went there as a child in search of silence and reflection, just as others seek the dim solace of a church. I went there to find answers to my questions, just as others might seek a priest in times of distress. Sometimes I went there simply for the atmosphere — the smell of the books, the soft tread of shoes on worn green carpet, the weight of the...