Bruce Kirkby was in town recently and we coffeed over his new book, The Dolphin's Tooth. Tall, jovial and both tanned and bleached by the sun, the 37-year-old Kirkby was born too late. At heart he is the quintessential Victorian explorer, even meeting his fiance on a cycling trip in Tibet.The Dolphin's Tooth is the story of Kirkby's adventures (and travails) in some of the world's most remote spots, and about his inner journey from unhappy baby engineer to explorer. Since quitting his cubicle-based day job 15 years ago, Kirkby has trekked Mongolia on horseback, cycled Pakistan's Karakoram Highway, rafted Africa’s Blue Nile Gorge, walked across Iceland, summitted Denali (twice), supported the 1997 Canadian expedition to Mt. Everest, and crossed Arabia's Empty Quarter on foot and camel (recounted in Sand Dance.)
Kirkby sent me Sand Dance after our interview and I read it in one sitting this last weekend. It's exciting to find a new author as engaging as Kirkby and I can't wait for his next book. It may be awhile, he says, because Kirkby is off to explore surfer culture. Here is his site.
2 comments:
I'd be interested to know how he finances his life of adventure. How many books has he written - two? - and do they come anywhere near selling enough copies to finance his extraordinary life? How does one become a career explorer/adventurer?
sometimes Bruce is paid and sometimes he does it on a shoestring. So, for instance, on Everest he was a part of the support team, responsible for communications. Same sort of the thing for the Blue Nile - he was part of the team scouting it to see if it could be a potential ecotourism thing. In the Empty Quarter, he and Jamie and Leigh Clarke found sponsors like Bausch and Lomb.
during the summer, Bruce leads rafting adventures down rivers like the Tatshenshini and has an income from public speaking and selling photos to magazines like National Geographic. Then, in the winter, he travels to places like Burma and lives cheaply. Where the rest of us have houses and cars, Bruce has travel.
in short, a life I would love to live.
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