A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe (Perfect Library) - Softcover

MacGregor, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1512058378 ISBN 13: 9781512058376

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Synopsis

"A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe" from John MacGregor. Scottish explorer, travel writer and philanthropist (1825-1892).

About this title

From the Back Cover

"I am so very well acquainted with the Rob Roy canoe and have taken passage in her with so much pleasure . . ."
--Charles Dickens

"If we dare to think of kayaking as having a literature the way fishing does, then MacGregor is our Izaak Walton."
--Brian Kologe, Sea Kayaker magazine, 1999

"When John MacGregor, of the Inner Temple, published his entertaining account of the Rob Roy's thousand mile voyage on the lakes and rivers of Europe, he established canoeing as a summer pastime."
--Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1880

About the Author

Originally a patent lawyer, MacGregor generally ignored the practice after 1853 and devoted his life to travel and philanthropy. In addition to A Thousand Miles, he also wrote three other popular voyaging books: A Voyage alone in the Yawl Rob Roy (1867); The Rob Ray on the Baltic (1867); and The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Red Sea, and Gennesareth (1869). For each trip, MacGregor had a new decked canoe built which retained its predecessor's title.

A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe is generally considered to have been one of the most popular books of 1866--in modern parlance: the year's top nonfiction bestseller. The novelty of MacGregor's mode of travel in 1865 generated newspaper coverage not only across Europe but also as far away as the United States, Canada, and South America. In many ways, this trip was one of the first "media events" ever recorded across continents.

MacGregor is generally recognized as the prime inspiration for the growth of canoeing, canoe camping, and canoeing clubs in Europe and America (he was also the founder of the Royal Canoe Club which was "commodored" by the Prince of Wales), and by extension, the father of modern sea kayaking. In fact, the several versions of the Rob Roy were "decked" canoes, or in modern terms, a hard-shell sea kayak.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1512058378
• ISBN 13: 9781512058376
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144
• Editor: The Perfect Library