Wade Davis: The Explorer follows Davis from
a river trip with his family on the Stikine in Alaska and
Northern B.C. to the Incan ruins of the high Peruvian Andes.
As the documentary unfolds, viewers discover that his work
with indigenous cultures has given him a truly unique view
of the world. He is able to slip off the map for awhile, to
live with the voodoo priests in Haiti, the Penan in Borneo
or the Quechuen of Chinchero. Davis brings those experiences
to us through his writings, lectures and photographs - teaching
us that there are other ways of seeing and experiencing the
world. The core of his work has been to catalogue these rare
and distant cultures as the threat of the modern world is
making them disappear at an alarming rate.
Forty-eight-year-old Davis has degrees from Harvard in both
botany and anthropology along with a PhD in ethnobotany-the
study of how people use plants. He has chairs at both Oxford
and Cambridge, he's a best-selling author and he is one of
only eight explorers-in-residence at the National Geographic
Society in Washington. His impressive resume belies a past
filled with hunting zombies and taking shamanistic drugs.
And his adventures have been just as much into new headspaces
as they have been journeys to distant lands.
Original Air Date - March 12, 2002
Links
Explorer-in-Residence,
National Geographic Society
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