Thursday, June 25, 2015

If it's the English lady traveling in the mountains - A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird

Since I was just in the Rocky Mountains, I will linger there for a day by writing about A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879) by Isabella Bird, the greatest tourist of the 19th century.  In this book she is mostly in Colorado, exploring the mountain trails on horseback, often alone, sometimes assisted by the desperados, settlers, and other tough characters she encounters.

…  I at once inquired if I could get to Green Lake.  The landlord said he thought not; the snow was very deep, and no one had been up for five weeks, but for my satisfaction he would send to a stable and inquire.  The amusing answer came back, “If it’s the English lady traveling in the mountains, she can have a horse, but not any one else.”  (Letter XII)

Her adventures – her unlikely existence – featured in the Colorado newspapers, Bird becomes a celebrity while she is there.  She is not the only celebrity in Colorado, but perhaps the only one who is not an outlaw, like the terrifying Comanche Bill (“my intelligent, courteous companion was one of the most notorious desperadoes of the Rocky Mountains, and the greatest Indian exterminator on the frontier,” Letter XI) and a man who becomes Bird’s close friend and companion, Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent (“She was as proud of having him in her house as if he had been the President, and I gained a reflected importance!,” Letter XVII).

Mountain Jim guides Isabella Bird on her ascent of Longs Peak, a highlight of the book.  Nowadays I believe you can drive most of the way to the top, and Bird herself writes that “[t]ruly terrible it was for me, to a member of the Alpine Club it would not be a feat worth performing” (Letter VII).  Nevertheless Bird’s book is part of the 1870s mountain-climbing craze, in the less crazed division.  Photo from the National Park Service.  They also have a little tribute to Bird as one of the founders of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Once Bird started traveling, and writing, she never stopped.  Trips to and books about Australia and Hawaii preceded A Lady’s Life, and the next stop would be Japan.  She is the woman that rode the mule ‘round the world, so to speak (warning: music).  I have read Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880).  As interesting as that book is, it does not have as good a story as A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, which in places has the narrative drive of an exciting novel and is curiously made more interesting by being less exotic.  Bird observes her own culture but in an unfinished form, as if civilization has collapsed but is being rebuilt amidst the rattlesnakes, blizzards, and black flies.  “Here the life was rough, rougher than any I had ever seen” she writes early in the book (Letter IV).  She not only develops a taste for certain parts of that roughness – not for the filth and flies – but helped develop that taste in who knows how many readers.

13 comments:

  1. I've discovered that I have a weakness for travel narratives. The best part of Chekhov's Sakhalin Island is the first 100 pages, his trip from Moscow across Siberia. I'll have to have a look at Ms Bird. I know Mary has read her.

    Long's Peak! I have seen that mountain thousands of times; I don't think I've been to the summit, but I've been to the parking lot at the trailhead and I've been drinking in Estes Park.

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  2. Estes Park, which had a half dozen human inhabitants at that point, became Bird's headquarters. Her love for the place is palpable.

    I doubt I have even been in that parking lot, but I have been to Estes Park and Rock Mountain NP a couple of times, and that certainly helped me understand the wheres and whats. Mountain terrain is hard to describe, and if the terrain is unknown the descriptions are hard to visualize.

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  3. I love how you say that the story is more interesting because the setting is less exotic. I've had her Japan book on my TBR list, now I must add this one. I love travelogues! Thanks for the review!

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  4. My pleasure. This is a great book of its kind, and a good book of any kind. Bird's voice - her humor and confidence - have great appeal, and I may well read another of her books someday. The Tibet book is most tempting. I actually read the Japan book while in Japan, so I can testify not just to its quality but to its utility.

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  5. I read an abridged version of this a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Of course, I'm a sucker for the British woman meets American frontiersman while hiking and riding horses genre. Giddy up!

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  6. Who is not a sucker for etc. etc.? It is irresistible.

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  7. Welcome back from the heights. I've heard of Bird but not yet read her. She sounds as though she fits squarely into that cohort of intrepid British travel writers who seem to have gone everywhere and done everything so blithely and with great wit and appreciation. Added to the list.

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  8. Yes, that is Bird. She was not an explorer, not a scientist of any kind. A pure traveler.

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  9. This sounds like great fun. Something to add to my list of travel books I want to read sometime. You always dig up such interesting stuff!

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  10. I think you would have a good time in general with the lady travelers, Victorian and post-Victorian. They wrote a lot of interesting books.

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  11. For the record, Longs Peak is not a peak that one can summit in a car. The park service has issued several brochures and pamphlets reminding visitors that it is NOT A HIKE (but rather a climb). People who are not foolish about lightning (but apparently foolish enough to climb the mountain) start at 3 a.m. in the summer. http://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/upload/keyhole_route_2011a.pdf

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  12. Obviously, Longs is not one of the 10 or so 14ers I've been to the top of.

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  13. That is a good point. Looking at a map, I see that the part I am thinking of as driving does not really count as part of the ascent. For Bird, this was a three day trip. Today, the first and last day would be quick drives from Estes Park. But that middle day, that is real mountain climbing, not much different from when Bird went.

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