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Select a Continent
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Across The Terrain
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago?
People often ask “How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago? It goes back to the days when my mother was reading bedtime stories to my brother and I. Due to her own interests the books she read were Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, and progressed over fifty years to my own favorites like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and the Adventurer Club’s own Geoff Tabin who wrote Blind Corners, his tales of conquering the seven summits.
From reading about adventures I went on to generating my own which ranged from leaving home at a tender age to ride my bicycle into northern Wisconsin, hunting wild boar in Illinois and eventually to climbing Kilimanjaro, stalking snow sheep in Siberia and big game safaris in Africa.
On the topic of Safaris I heard about Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago in the early 70s as a place to attend monthly programs put on by adventurers. Chef Alberto made the front page of the Tribune by being voted Mr. Sportsman of 1965 because of his many African Adventures. This monthly attraction caught my eye and I started attending.
For one of these sessions Chef invited C.J. McElroy “Mac” a relatively famous hunter himself whose ambition was to form a national chain of hunting clubs. After an incredibly rousing speech Mac asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him in this very ambitious endeavor. I stood up as did a half dozen others and we met with him after the dinner to make plans. To make a long story short, as Mac quoted later in a book I was selected to edit, “That night, in Chicago, Safari Club International (www.safariclub.org) was born”. That was in April of 1972 and today SCI is the world’s largest hunting and conservation organization with over 50,000 members, chapters in over 100 countries, and an annual convention that brings close to 25,000 people to Reno every January. For six years I acted as publisher and editor for Safari magazine, recently given the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Internationally acclaimed Communicator Awards as well as the Mar-Com Platinum Award for Creative (magazine), both the highest awards in their categories.
Of the half dozen people who stood up with me at Chef’s dinner that night in 1972 was Hy Erickson, then CEO of Borg Erickson corporation. Hy, who went on to become first president of the Chicago Chapter, was already a member of The Adventurers Club of Chicago, and asked me if I’d be interested in seeing the club. I was, quickly found a couple of sponsors, and became a member in 1973. The years since have certainly broadened my horizons beyond hunting and were the inspiration for this site…which I hope you enjoy by sharing your stories with friends.
Keith Bates, July 31, 2008
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Cultural Activities
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago?
People often ask “How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago? It goes back to the days when my mother was reading bedtime stories to my brother and I. Due to her own interests the books she read were Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, and progressed over fifty years to my own favorites like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and the Adventurer Club’s own Geoff Tabin who wrote Blind Corners, his tales of conquering the seven summits.
From reading about adventures I went on to generating my own which ranged from leaving home at a tender age to ride my bicycle into northern Wisconsin, hunting wild boar in Illinois and eventually to climbing Kilimanjaro, stalking snow sheep in Siberia and big game safaris in Africa.
On the topic of Safaris I heard about Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago in the early 70s as a place to attend monthly programs put on by adventurers. Chef Alberto made the front page of the Tribune by being voted Mr. Sportsman of 1965 because of his many African Adventures. This monthly attraction caught my eye and I started attending.
For one of these sessions Chef invited C.J. McElroy “Mac” a relatively famous hunter himself whose ambition was to form a national chain of hunting clubs. After an incredibly rousing speech Mac asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him in this very ambitious endeavor. I stood up as did a half dozen others and we met with him after the dinner to make plans. To make a long story short, as Mac quoted later in a book I was selected to edit, “That night, in Chicago, Safari Club International (www.safariclub.org) was born”. That was in April of 1972 and today SCI is the world’s largest hunting and conservation organization with over 50,000 members, chapters in over 100 countries, and an annual convention that brings close to 25,000 people to Reno every January. For six years I acted as publisher and editor for Safari magazine, recently given the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Internationally acclaimed Communicator Awards as well as the Mar-Com Platinum Award for Creative (magazine), both the highest awards in their categories.
Of the half dozen people who stood up with me at Chef’s dinner that night in 1972 was Hy Erickson, then CEO of Borg Erickson corporation. Hy, who went on to become first president of the Chicago Chapter, was already a member of The Adventurers Club of Chicago, and asked me if I’d be interested in seeing the club. I was, quickly found a couple of sponsors, and became a member in 1973. The years since have certainly broadened my horizons beyond hunting and were the inspiration for this site…which I hope you enjoy by sharing your stories with friends.
Keith Bates, July 31, 2008
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Embracing Nature
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
The Difference Between Hunting and Photo Safaris
By Brooke Chilvers Lubin, Editor, African Sporting Gazette
If you know my husband, PH Rudy Lubin, you'll understand why I had my doubts about our accepting an invitation to join a 10-day overland photographic safari with six other 'Baby Boomers' through the national parks of northern Botswana.
After close to 25 years in the hunting industry, I dreamed of visiting Africa as a client. And so, 20 years after my first hunting safari to Botswana with R.L. Wilson as client and Terry Palmer as PH, I loved driving the game-rich trails of Chobe National Park in a well-equipped open safari vehicle. We drove on to Savuti with its famous population of solitary old tuskers carrying loads of 75 Ibs of ivory per side, then continued along the Mababe Depression through the leadwood and mature mopane forests that mark the Khwai River in the Moremi Game Reserve, and finished in another camp along the Okavango.
We approached elephant by boat on the Chobe River, saw herds of sable sporting incredible horns, and a pack of wild dogs moving among zebra while buffalo stampeded in the distance. Our local guide, a witchdoctor, taught us about the trees and showed me how to snort smoking elephant dung to clear my headache. But after years of sleeping next to a well armed husband in our safari camp a week's drive from Bangui, it was disconcerting at night in Savuti to have four lionesses skirmishing with hyenas in camp, knocking over water basins and lanterns, and brushing against our tent, with a knife as our only weapon; the unarmed local guides remained silent and safe in the truck while the tourists huddled in their tents until Rudy roared louder than the lions and they went away.
Of course there were a dozen (cost-free) details that as outfitters we would have improved on. We couldn't 'keep our hands off' and made sure the bags in the trailer were correctly loaded and that everyone's personal supplies of beer and soft drinks were in the cooler in the morning to be chilled in time for lunch.
I could understand these holidaymakers not experiencing our thrill at seeing red lechwe or puku for the first time. But it was downright shocking when, after a week of our pointing out and telling the life stories of every antelope from steenbok to kudu we jokingly asked, "What are those?" looking at a huge herd of impala, they answered "Gazelles." I wondered what they would respond to their family and friends' questions when they, showed them the photos they snapped all day.
Even the retired professor, equipped with photographic lenses as long as a rifle barrel, was surprisingly in different to Rudy's patiently digging through bird books to give him the names. And we were flabbergasted that nobody 'got' the joy and beauty of being silently poled through the Okavango in mokoros (the plural is actually mekoros),
something I would gladly experience every day for a week.
"Why is there so much sand and the roads so rough?" they asked. Well, it's called the Kalahari. "Why don't they tar the roads?" Well, it's called the 'limiting factor' to prevent over-exploitation, as otherwise every teenager in Southern Africa with a 4 x 4 would come through the parks for school holidays. Already in 20 years the number of tourist camps in the Okavango had multiplied exponentially from four to close to 80, so that the magnificent elephants had become indifferent to the endless Cessnas loaded with well-to-do widows with cameras.
The moral of the story is that, due to the nature of tourists, most safaris are photographic safaris and not even
Game viewing safaris. Our co-travellers, as charming and fun as they were around the campfire, were shockingly passive and indifferent to the wildlife around them, and had no passion to identify and study the birds, plants and game animals we were privileged to share habitat with.
During our to days with tourists, I missed the ardor and fervor of the hunter's quest for an animal, like mountain nyala, that has haunted his safari dreams. I yearned for his zeal and readiness to endure rough conditions to have a chance at bongo or sitatunga. I pined for his infatuation with this rifle, and his thrill with success.
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In The Sky
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago?
People often ask “How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago? It goes back to the days when my mother was reading bedtime stories to my brother and I. Due to her own interests the books she read were Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, and progressed over fifty years to my own favorites like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and the Adventurer Club’s own Geoff Tabin who wrote Blind Corners, his tales of conquering the seven summits.
From reading about adventures I went on to generating my own which ranged from leaving home at a tender age to ride my bicycle into northern Wisconsin, hunting wild boar in Illinois and eventually to climbing Kilimanjaro, stalking snow sheep in Siberia and big game safaris in Africa.
On the topic of Safaris I heard about Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago in the early 70s as a place to attend monthly programs put on by adventurers. Chef Alberto made the front page of the Tribune by being voted Mr. Sportsman of 1965 because of his many African Adventures. This monthly attraction caught my eye and I started attending.
For one of these sessions Chef invited C.J. McElroy “Mac” a relatively famous hunter himself whose ambition was to form a national chain of hunting clubs. After an incredibly rousing speech Mac asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him in this very ambitious endeavor. I stood up as did a half dozen others and we met with him after the dinner to make plans. To make a long story short, as Mac quoted later in a book I was selected to edit, “That night, in Chicago, Safari Club International (www.safariclub.org) was born”. That was in April of 1972 and today SCI is the world’s largest hunting and conservation organization with over 50,000 members, chapters in over 100 countries, and an annual convention that brings close to 25,000 people to Reno every January. For six years I acted as publisher and editor for Safari magazine, recently given the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Internationally acclaimed Communicator Awards as well as the Mar-Com Platinum Award for Creative (magazine), both the highest awards in their categories.
Of the half dozen people who stood up with me at Chef’s dinner that night in 1972 was Hy Erickson, then CEO of Borg Erickson corporation. Hy, who went on to become first president of the Chicago Chapter, was already a member of The Adventurers Club of Chicago, and asked me if I’d be interested in seeing the club. I was, quickly found a couple of sponsors, and became a member in 1973. The years since have certainly broadened my horizons beyond hunting and were the inspiration for this site…which I hope you enjoy by sharing your stories with friends.
Keith Bates, July 31, 2008
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On the Snow
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago?
People often ask “How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago? It goes back to the days when my mother was reading bedtime stories to my brother and I. Due to her own interests the books she read were Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, and progressed over fifty years to my own favorites like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and the Adventurer Club’s own Geoff Tabin who wrote Blind Corners, his tales of conquering the seven summits.
From reading about adventures I went on to generating my own which ranged from leaving home at a tender age to ride my bicycle into northern Wisconsin, hunting wild boar in Illinois and eventually to climbing Kilimanjaro, stalking snow sheep in Siberia and big game safaris in Africa.
On the topic of Safaris I heard about Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago in the early 70s as a place to attend monthly programs put on by adventurers. Chef Alberto made the front page of the Tribune by being voted Mr. Sportsman of 1965 because of his many African Adventures. This monthly attraction caught my eye and I started attending.
For one of these sessions Chef invited C.J. McElroy “Mac” a relatively famous hunter himself whose ambition was to form a national chain of hunting clubs. After an incredibly rousing speech Mac asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him in this very ambitious endeavor. I stood up as did a half dozen others and we met with him after the dinner to make plans. To make a long story short, as Mac quoted later in a book I was selected to edit, “That night, in Chicago, Safari Club International (www.safariclub.org) was born”. That was in April of 1972 and today SCI is the world’s largest hunting and conservation organization with over 50,000 members, chapters in over 100 countries, and an annual convention that brings close to 25,000 people to Reno every January. For six years I acted as publisher and editor for Safari magazine, recently given the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Internationally acclaimed Communicator Awards as well as the Mar-Com Platinum Award for Creative (magazine), both the highest awards in their categories.
Of the half dozen people who stood up with me at Chef’s dinner that night in 1972 was Hy Erickson, then CEO of Borg Erickson corporation. Hy, who went on to become first president of the Chicago Chapter, was already a member of The Adventurers Club of Chicago, and asked me if I’d be interested in seeing the club. I was, quickly found a couple of sponsors, and became a member in 1973. The years since have certainly broadened my horizons beyond hunting and were the inspiration for this site…which I hope you enjoy by sharing your stories with friends.
Keith Bates, July 31, 2008
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On the Water
Friends With Common Interests
Featured Story
How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago?
People often ask “How did you get involved with The Adventurers Club of Chicago? It goes back to the days when my mother was reading bedtime stories to my brother and I. Due to her own interests the books she read were Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure, and Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, and progressed over fifty years to my own favorites like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and the Adventurer Club’s own Geoff Tabin who wrote Blind Corners, his tales of conquering the seven summits.
From reading about adventures I went on to generating my own which ranged from leaving home at a tender age to ride my bicycle into northern Wisconsin, hunting wild boar in Illinois and eventually to climbing Kilimanjaro, stalking snow sheep in Siberia and big game safaris in Africa.
On the topic of Safaris I heard about Chef Alberto’s restaurant in Chicago in the early 70s as a place to attend monthly programs put on by adventurers. Chef Alberto made the front page of the Tribune by being voted Mr. Sportsman of 1965 because of his many African Adventures. This monthly attraction caught my eye and I started attending.
For one of these sessions Chef invited C.J. McElroy “Mac” a relatively famous hunter himself whose ambition was to form a national chain of hunting clubs. After an incredibly rousing speech Mac asked if anyone in the audience would like to join him in this very ambitious endeavor. I stood up as did a half dozen others and we met with him after the dinner to make plans. To make a long story short, as Mac quoted later in a book I was selected to edit, “That night, in Chicago, Safari Club International (www.safariclub.org) was born”. That was in April of 1972 and today SCI is the world’s largest hunting and conservation organization with over 50,000 members, chapters in over 100 countries, and an annual convention that brings close to 25,000 people to Reno every January. For six years I acted as publisher and editor for Safari magazine, recently given the Crystal Award of Excellence in the Internationally acclaimed Communicator Awards as well as the Mar-Com Platinum Award for Creative (magazine), both the highest awards in their categories.
Of the half dozen people who stood up with me at Chef’s dinner that night in 1972 was Hy Erickson, then CEO of Borg Erickson corporation. Hy, who went on to become first president of the Chicago Chapter, was already a member of The Adventurers Club of Chicago, and asked me if I’d be interested in seeing the club. I was, quickly found a couple of sponsors, and became a member in 1973. The years since have certainly broadened my horizons beyond hunting and were the inspiration for this site…which I hope you enjoy by sharing your stories with friends.
Keith Bates, July 31, 2008
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