The Rover Boys

“In 1957 two Americans, Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady, became legends with the publication of On the Road, a fictional account of a drive across the United States that was less a journey than an opportunity for an intense and performative celebration of self.

That same year two Canadians, one an aspiring artist of 24, the other a wildlife biologist just 22, went around the world by road, with nary a thought given to their own place in their unfolding saga. What mattered to them as they traversed the Serengeti, inched through mud forests of Congo, reached India and Nepal, joined military forays into the jungles of Malaya, reaching finally the deserts of Australia, was what lay beyond the shadow of self, everything to be seen and experienced on the very edge of uncertainty and true adventure.

Along the way they forged a bond of friendship that would endure for more than sixty years, even as both men left an indelible mark on the world; Robert Bateman as the world’s most celebrated wildlife artist, and Bristol Foster, the scientist singularly responsible for setting aside in perpetuity more than 100 ecological reserves in British Columbia. The Rover Boys is their story, finally told, and it is a glorious account.”

Wade Davis OC, Ethnographer, Massey Lecturer & best-selling author of The Wayfinders, Into The Silence and Magdelena.