When former Newsweek correspondent Daniel Glick embarked on aTed Scripps Fellowship in 2000, he didn't expect that a year later he would be dodging pythons in a river in Borneo or tracking Javan rhinos in the Vietnam jungle or plucking leeches off his calves on muddy trekking paths in the Himalayas.
He certainly didn't expect to be pursuing such adventures as a solo dad with his 9-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son in tow. But then he didn't foresee several events that the year would hold, transitions that upended his life and ultimately launched what Glick calls an "epic road trip" around the world with his kids.
During his fellowship year, Glick's brother died of cancer and his wife of 15 years left him to pursue a relationship with a woman in another state, leaving him alone with their children. Emotionally shattered, he contemplated the benefits of an extended global journey to put things into perspective and begin the healing process.
Struggling to deal with his grief, as well as a new sense of how unpredictable and short life may be, Glick decided to take his children to see some of the world's most threatened natural wonders. "Before they're gone" became the theme of the proposed trip: before the kids grew up and left home; before these ecological treasures were merely memories in the wake of human destruction; before life itself might suddenly be taken, as it had been for Glick's brother, Bob, at 48 years of age.
Friends thought he was crazy when he told them of his plans: hauling two kids, by himself, to some of the most remote corners of the Earth for six months? But Glick, who has lived on four continents and traveled extensively in places like Pakistan and Siberia, was not daunted. He had always found solace and renewal in vagabonding, and this trip would prove no exception.
In July 2001, Glick set off with son Kolya and daughter Zoe on a flight across the Pacific. They eased into the rhythms of travel with a camper van trip down Australia's east coast before venturing to Indonesia and Cambodia, arcing across Southeast Asia and home via Europe. Glick's account of their adventures and his own inner journey from despair to hope turned into his new book: Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, and will be published in June by Public Affairs.
The memoir's title recalls a moment the three shared on an island in the northern Australia wilderness, three weeks into the trip. Feeling the strain of their ordeal lifting, they cavorted on the beach in a wild "monkey dance," a moment in which Glick says he knew their "psychic convalescence" had begun. But the months ahead would hold as much challenge as consolation, as the trio endured heat, humidity, bugs, rugged overland travel and breakdowns of both vehicles and tempers.Monkey Dancing is a captivating, moving and humorous narrative, full of reflection and insight about human relationships, with each other and with the planet. Though the book is highly entertaining, it is also a stark tale of the grim conditions facing several of the Earth's most spectacular ecosystems. Glick, who has covered the environment extensively during his career, weaves solid reporting among personal anecdotes for a tale that is as much about our wider connections with the natural world as our connections with our fellow humans.
Glick says he became very interested in conservation biology as a Scripps Fellow, and it was his growing awareness of international environmental issues that prompted him to think about the value of a trip like this one for his children. He had not committed himself to a book about their experiences prior to the trip, but the idea for one was incubating as he made the preparations. He set a general itinerary and lined up interviews with biologists and ecologists in the destinations they planned to visit.
Australia's Great Barrier Reef was high on his list. Glick had learned that 40 percent of the world's coral reefs are gone. As a father with a passion for nature, he wanted his kids to float among the technicolor fish and flora submerged beneath a turquoise ocean. As a journalist, he saw a story in the fact that even here, in a developed country where the environment is relatively protected, this reef is still gravely threatened. It wasn't inconceivable that the remaining coral reefs could disappear in his children's lifetimes.
He also chose places with "charismatic megafauna" that would appeal to his kids: orangutans in Borneo, rhinoceroses in Vietnam and Nepal, and the tigers of the Nepalese lowland plains. Those species, however, are on the verge of extinction, a fact apparent in how difficult it was to locate these animals.
"In Vietnam we were probably witnessing the extinction of a species in the wild, probably in real time," Glick reflects. "There were maybe four living members of the species - of a large mammal - it was really striking. As the bumper sticker says, 'Extinct is forever.'"
Glick says he was impacted by "how profoundly humans continue to conduct an uncontrolled experiment on an otherwise beautiful planet. Every place we went there were huge environmental issues overlaid by the global issues of climate change, rising sea levels, ozone depletion…Humans have become a force of nature."
Such a realization was brought vividly home for Glick many times during the trip. "Witnessing the gold mining in Borneo was one of the most depressing sights," he recalls. "It was so rampant, so obviously destructive." It became clear to him that we must be "bound together not as nations but as members of the planet as never before."
His observations were not without encouragement and hope. He cites Nepal's community forest program, which has helped to stabilize the tiger population and increase the number of rhinos. Though the program, visitors can ride elephants through the jungle in search of wildlife, a highlight of the trip for Kolya and Zoe. They also saw neighboring health clinics that were built with tourist dollars. "Ecotourism, when done right, can combine economic gain and preservation of the environment," Glick says.
Glick is certain his kids have been altered by their experiences abroad. "Do I still find unrecycled bottles in Kolya's garbage can? You bet. But does Zoe talk about the cassowary [a rare, giant Australian bird] to people with great pride? Does Kolya have a greater sense of environmental politics? You bet. I don't have any doubt that the trip had an incredible impact."
It's not every kid that gets a first-hand look at the Earth's vanishing wild places, though. How do we enlighten a new generation of young people? Glick ponders the question. "I don't know. I wish I did. Education, I guess." He hopes that his book - and his life's endeavors as a journalist - will be an effective part of that effort.
Dan Glick is also the author of Powder Burn: Arson, Money and Mystery on Vail Mountain. He worked for Newsweek for more than 12 years as a Washington correspondent and special correspondent in the Rocky Mountain West. He has written for magazines including Outside, Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Washington Post Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and Men's Journal. He lives with his two children in Lafayette, Colo. For more about Monkey Dancing and Glick's work, visit his web site.
Wendy Worrall Redal is the program coordinator for the CEJ and editor of Connections.
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