The Bowen Island Museum & Archives is pleased to announce the upcoming lecture, Into the Silence, by Wade Davis at Cates Hill Chapel.
On the eve of Remembrance Day, Wade Davis has volunteered his time to speak about The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest. In this lecture he explores the consequences of the First World War’s carnage on the minds of men who will later join the Everest expeditions, as well as on the collective psyche of the British nation. It was this generation of men, those who had been through the nightmare of the war, that death held no mystery.
Drawing on more than a decade of research, bestselling author and explorer Wade Davis recreates the heroic efforts of George Mallory and his fellow climbers, setting their significant achievements in sweeping historical context: from Britain’s 19th-century imperial ambitions to the war that shaped Mallory’s generation. Theirs was a country broken, and the Everest expeditions emerged as a powerful symbol of national redemption and hope. He creates a timeless portrait of these remarkable men and their extraordinary times.
Wade Davis is a professor of anthropology and the B.C. Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Between 1999 and 2013 he served as explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society and is currently a member of the NGS Explorers Council and honorary vice-president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Named by the NGS as one of the Explorers for the Millennium, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” In 2014, Switzerland’s leading think tank, the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute of Zurich, ranked him 16th in their annual survey of the top 100 most influential Global Thought Leaders.
Join us at 7 p.m., Nov. 10 at Cates Chapel to hear Davis speak at a fundraising event for the museum and archives. Tickets are $15, sold in advance at the museum and archives (604-947-2655), and Phoenix Photos.
