THE UTTERMOST PART OF THE EARTH
by E. Lucas Bridges

Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Peter Matthiessen lavished praise on The Uttermost Part of the Earth for its deep ethnographic insight and vivid portrayal of Tierra del Fuego.

So how could I not read it ?

At first, I found a swashbuckling adventure, played out at the end of the earth. Born in 1874 to missionary parents in Ushuaia, Lucas Bridges grew up on the stormy shores of the Beagle Channel: he swam in freezing sub-Antarctic waters, spoke the dialect of the canoe-faring Yámana (Yahgan), and blazed trails across uncharted mountain passes into the territory of the nomadic, towering Selk’nam (Ona). He was initiated as a blood brother into the Ona tribe, wrestled their champions, and hunted guanaco across windswept peat bogs.

And then… the true weight of the book takes hold. The boyish thrills give way to a heartbreaking elegy. Bridges wasn’t playing at being an explorer; he was a blood brother to peoples standing on the precipice of obliteration. As imported measles, tuberculosis, and ruthless bounty-hunting sheep ranchers sweep across the island, these formidable hunters begin to die in his arms.

WHY READ IT?

The genius of the book is that his tone is modest, tender, and deeply observant. Its is a grand adventure story that doubles as a heartbreaking elegy for a lost world.

BUY THE BOOK → Bookshop.org (coming soon)

THE JOURNEY → Fireland