Travels on the Edge

A Naturalist’s Notes from the Back of Beyond

Robert McCracken Peck

• Publisher: The American Philosophical Society Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781606181546
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Adventure tales told, with humanity and warmth, about some of the world's most remote and fascinating places and their inhabitants

For almost fifty years, Robert McCracken Peck has traveled the world as the official photographer, historian, and chronicler of scientific expeditions from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, America's oldest natural history institution, now part of Drexel University. He has discovered three new frogs in the Andes, collected several new species of fish on the Orinoco River, and helped study little-known insects in rarely visited parts of Africa and the Caribbean. He has made seven extensive expeditions to Mongolia to study its wildlife and document the fast-changing lives of its nomadic herdsmen. He has witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, traveled with camel caravans across the Gobi Desert, faced down headhunters in Ecuador, and been put under house arrest in China.

Travels on the Edge is a collection of stand-alone, but related, essays recounting his remarkable experiences. Lavishly illustrated, the book not only carries readers to some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world but also celebrates the challenges and joys of scientific research. Its author brings a rich human perspective to regions few people have had a chance to explore and brings the people and wildlife he found there to life through his writing and photos.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Advance Praise for Travels on the Edge
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Roads Less Traveled
• 2. Wandering in Iceland
• 3. Isolation: On the Edge of the Bering Sea
• 4. House Arrest in Hooling, China
• 5. Suspected Smugglers on the Colombian Border
• 6. Running Slowly: The Trans-Siberian Railroad
• 7. Sleeping in Siberia (Buryatia)
• 8. On the Road to Cradock: Deadly Anger in South Africa
• 9. Walking with Wolves: Winter Travel in Mongolia
• 10. Mongolian Transportation: The Hazards of Traveling by Air
• 11. No Pilot Error: An Iffy Landing in Venezuela
• 12. Immersion in a Wild World: The Casiquiare Canal
• 13. New Fish in the Orinoco
• 14. Esmeralda: Visiting the “End of the Civilized World”
• 15. A Trip for Rest and Recreation: The Harriman Alaska Expedition
• 16. Chipping at the Berlin Wall
• 17. A Pope’s Farewell: Benedict’s Last Public Event
• 18. Another Farewell: The Pope’s Last Private Event
• 19. The Pope’s Final Exit
• 20. A Cuban Pilgrimage
• 21. Seeking a Relic but Finding a Plague: More Travels on the Steppes of Central Asia
• 22. Headhunters and Hummingbirds: An Expedition into Ecuador
• 23. Travel Writing
• 24. A Misunderstanding on the Trans-Siberian Express
• 25. Unexpected Lions
• 26. Lucky Timing: Saving a Life
• 27. Spending Time with Thoreau: How Strongyloides Took Me to the Brink
• 28. Reasons for Travel
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index