Kevin Fedarko and Hampton Sides have established themselves as estimable writers of the American scene, with work attending to landscape and history, and humanity's mark upon them.
This year, Sides released The Wide, Wide Sea, which chronicles the final journey of Captain James Cook during the Age of Exploration. And Fedarko has released A Walk in the Park, a testimony of his own journey, hiking — not rafting — the entire length of the Grand Canyon.
Their respective book tours brought their paths to cross in Telluride, CO, and the old friends stopped by the KOTO station to reflect on their latest work. They begin by recalling their early days as editors at Outside Magazine.
Sides: Both of us — Kevin and I — got an education as editors at Outside working with some of the best writers in the country. Well, what I think were some of the best writers in the country, writing about themes and subjects that we cared about: land use and environmentalism and cultures far away. I think our education as editors there, in a pretty direct way, led to some of the subject matter that we've pursued in our books.
That's what I do and what I've done with this most recent book which is about the final journey of Captain James Cook, one of the greatest explorers of all time. It's like an Outside Magazine story set in the past 250 years ago. What do you think, Kev?
Fedarko: Yes — and I know in my case, Outside had a much earlier influence on me as well in terms of just shaping how I thought about the natural world. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, amid a ruined industrialized landscape.
And one of the windows that I was given as a young boy into the possibility of a wider world, a world where landscapes had not been marred and harmed and ruined was in the pages of Outside Magazine.
KOTO: So Hampton, as you mentioned your latest book follows the last journey of Captain Cook. Do you feel you were able to get into Captain Cook's head?
Sides: Well, it's a good question.The answer is yes and no. I did get to know certain parts of his personality. He, however, lived in an age when sea captains were not very emotionally expressive. He kept a journal, a very, very lengthy one, but the entries were often mundane observations about the depth of the water, the barometric pressure, the currents.
So you don't get a lot of the emotional stuff. And maybe that's just who he was. And in fact, what he was primarily was a mapmaker.
KOTO: So Kevin, the character in your book, quite differently, is you yourself. Did you have to dramatize yourself to make it a good read?
Sides: Yeah, because this is memoir; in some part Kevin's book is a memoir. You are a major character in your own story and that, this is the first time you've ever really done a lot of that, isn't it?
Fedarko: I mean, that's completely true. I've written magazine stories in first person, but this is the very first time I've written a book in which I'm a major character. In fact, I should say, I took the opposite approach that Captain Cook took in his journals: I laid everything out. I felt that an important aspect of this story was to reveal the challenges, the incompetency, the bumblings of me as I moved through the canyon.
I felt there was a kind of emotional and psychological topography that ran parallel to the topography of the Canyon itself: the highs and lows that you experience.
If you move into a place where you're not adequately prepared as I was not — nor was Pete McBride, the photographer and filmmaker who went with me — we did not engage in enough preparation. We were guilty of too much hubris and arrogance and assuming that we knew too much, and were going to be just fine. The struggles that we encountered in this incredibly brutal and harsh reality of the canyon — those really form the shape of the narrative itself.
KOTO: You mentioned Pete McBride. He's there the whole time throughout this ill-fated track on the Grand Canyon. How does that relationship and that friendship fit into this book, this journey?
Fedarko: I mean, this is a story about a massive landscape and an incredibly famous National Park. But it’s also a story of friendship. This was a year, more than a year, moving through the Canyon. 750 miles into and out of the tributaries, up and down the layers of rock, over the course of 75 days arrayed along each 8 separate back-to-back expeditions, each of which was separated by a period of time in which we came out of the canyon to rest and re-provision.
But the arc of the journey itself was longer, and the challenges were deeper, and I would argue, because of all of that the rewards were greater as well. Including the rewards of friendship. [We were] moving through challenges: arguing, fighting, and deciding ultimately to continue to be friends and then celebrating that fact.
Sides: They're like an old married couple, Kevin and Pete McBride. They argue about everything, but they still friends. So that's a good, a good outcome.
KOTO: Alright, so two authors, two new books. You two are crossing paths in Telluride on your respective book tours and have taken the opportunity to do a combined book talk. What can you tell us about this event and this collaboration?
Sides: It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. But I think there's so many overlapping themes in our two books that we'll have a heck of a lot to talk about. It'll be a great conversation. And this is a great place to do that kind of conversation because Telluride is a place where a lot of adventurous souls hang their hats. So, it'll be fun.