What I write about when not writing about birds

Caution: non-birding post ahead 🟡

At left is the first book printed in the polar regions, Aurora Australis (1908-1909), with an inscription by Sir Ernest Shackleton. The book was made up of loose sheets laced in wooden covers, made of packing-cases which contained the provisions for the expedition. At right are reindeer skin mukluks that once belonged to explorer and aviator Richard Byrd (Lomen Reindeer Corporation, Nome, Alaska).

Spring break is a time to look back and enjoy some recent accomplishments and unique experiences—birding and non-birding. One of my favorite on-the-job moments happened in late 2023.

This is a Q&A I did with underwater explorer Mensun Bound, whose successful discovery of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance in Antarctica has now been turned into a major National Geographic film by Director Jimmy Chin. I had an opportunity to meet Mensun and his wife, Joanna, while they viewed polar expedition items including Richard Byrd’s reindeer skin mukluks. Mensun is from the Falkland Islands and grew up almost literally in Shackleton’s shadow.

Here are three more from working daily in an independent research library. Our collection spans so many topics, and you’ll get that sense in these pieces:

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Diane “Midge” Dellinger is a descendent of the early 19th-century Muscogee (Creek) Nation leader, William McIntosh Jr., who was a Mekko, or Chief, in Georgia in a time when settlers were colonizing the southeastern United States. William’s portrait is included in one of the most imposing, influential, and expensive books published in the United States before the Civil War, Thomas McKenney and James Hall's History of the Indian Tribes of North America. The Bureau of Indian Affairs commissioned painter Charles Bird King to create the portraits as tribal leaders visited Washington, DC, as part of official delegations to the federal government.

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Actor and comedian Richard Pryor was one of the many performers who came up on stage at Mister Kelly’s, a legendary Chicago night spot in the Rush Street corridor. The club played a key role in Pryor’s transformation from a straight-laced comic to someone who pushed boundaries and drew attention to the sobering realities of racism. “I don’t think anybody has ever had as singular an impact on the art form as Richard since,” said comedy historian Dan Pasternack in the documentary, Live at Mister Kelly’s.

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This Halloween-themed piece looks at The Book of the Damned, a noted 1919 work of paranormal scholar Charles Fort. The book compiles an array of anecdotes from around the world that are outside of the realm of the scientific and stretch into poltergeists, UFOs, and the otherworldly. Fort cites dozens and dozens of unexplained phenomena, in sometimes rambling fashion. Many critics panned his work, but others like writer Ben Hecht praised him for his anti-authoritarian and subversive impulses. A recent Wall Street Journal article describes how Fort influenced many modern science-fiction writers.

With any luck, the next year will include more of these discoveries related to our collection. I hope you’ll visit soon and see our current exhibition or the one I’m working on for this June.