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In Search of the Real Tristan Jones (McGraw-Hill $21.94)
According to a new biography, Welsh Sailor Tristan Jones was the greatest nautical storyteller of the 20th century but nearly everything he did was based on a lie.
"He was a nobody until age 40,"; says Anthony Dalton, author of Wayward Sailor: In Search of the Real Tristan Jones (McGraw-Hill $21.94). "He essentially invented Tristan Jones, then he grew into the shell he created for himself.";
Dalton spent three years tracing how Jones chronically lied about his background and used false passports while describing his imaginary ordeals in the Royal Navy, South America and the Arctic. Nonetheless Dalton admires the man whose maritime accomplishments eventually caught up with his reputation, as he lost both his legs in the process.
A boating fanatic, Dalton lives in Tsawwassen where he keeps a 33' sloop and a self-built 21' Polynesian outrigger canoe. If you can believe his resume-he has led a CBC-TV documentary expedition to the salt mines of Taoudenit in northern Mali, conducted a near-fatal solo voyage by small boat around the west and north coasts of Arctic Alaska, made river expeditions with Bangladeshi naturalists in search of the Royal Bengal tiger and paddled wilderness rivers in northern Canada for the Discovery Channel.
Dalton is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Explorers Club. He is now writing a novel about a man-eating Bengal tiger that is inspired by his frightening encounter with one-in the middle of a river.
Wayward Sailor has been released in trade paperback and Dalton has co-authored The Best of Nautical Quarterly, Vol 1, The Lure of Sail (MBI Publishing; H.B. Fenn $65) with Reese Palley. Dalton and Bernice Lever recently co-chaired the national convention of the 85-year-old Canadian Authors Association.
Wayward 0-07-144028-3; Best of 0-7603-1820-4
[BCBW Winter 2004] "Maritime"
"He was a nobody until age 40,"; says Anthony Dalton, author of Wayward Sailor: In Search of the Real Tristan Jones (McGraw-Hill $21.94). "He essentially invented Tristan Jones, then he grew into the shell he created for himself.";
Dalton spent three years tracing how Jones chronically lied about his background and used false passports while describing his imaginary ordeals in the Royal Navy, South America and the Arctic. Nonetheless Dalton admires the man whose maritime accomplishments eventually caught up with his reputation, as he lost both his legs in the process.
A boating fanatic, Dalton lives in Tsawwassen where he keeps a 33' sloop and a self-built 21' Polynesian outrigger canoe. If you can believe his resume-he has led a CBC-TV documentary expedition to the salt mines of Taoudenit in northern Mali, conducted a near-fatal solo voyage by small boat around the west and north coasts of Arctic Alaska, made river expeditions with Bangladeshi naturalists in search of the Royal Bengal tiger and paddled wilderness rivers in northern Canada for the Discovery Channel.
Dalton is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Explorers Club. He is now writing a novel about a man-eating Bengal tiger that is inspired by his frightening encounter with one-in the middle of a river.
Wayward Sailor has been released in trade paperback and Dalton has co-authored The Best of Nautical Quarterly, Vol 1, The Lure of Sail (MBI Publishing; H.B. Fenn $65) with Reese Palley. Dalton and Bernice Lever recently co-chaired the national convention of the 85-year-old Canadian Authors Association.
Wayward 0-07-144028-3; Best of 0-7603-1820-4
[BCBW Winter 2004] "Maritime"
Submitted on September 23, 2004 in By David.
