Dersu the Trapper Book

Dersu the Trapper

I learned of this book in reading "The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival" by John Vaillant, and decided to look into it. "Dersu the Trapper" by V. K. Arseniev is a 1923 memoir by the Russian explorer Vladimir Arseniev. I obtained the public domain epub copy I read from the Internet Archive. There is also a free public domain audio version on the Internet Archive.

This account is considered the Russian counterpart to The Journals of Lewis and Clark, the subject matter being some of Vladimir Klavdievich Arseniev's explorations of the Ussurian taiga in the early 1900s on which he was accompanied by an indigenous Gold named Dersu Uzala.

I see this as a book for those that appreciate Nature and the value of wilderness, understanding our weedy specie's too often ignorant and destructive impacts on the natural world that sustains us, and our parasitical proclivities towards each other. Not even Vladimir Arseniev is exempt from humankind's contradictions, but he learned a lot from Dersu Uzala. Dresu, as depicted by Vladimir Arseniev, was a man that seemed to understand how to live in respectful coexistence with the natural world.

It's written like a travelog of some of the author's explorations with adventure to spare. Imagine encountering tusked large Ussuri wild boar, a towering angry Ussuri brown bear (think Kodiak bear), being stalked by a 500lb Amur tiger, being caught in a forest fire with an injured foot, or the opposite of being bone weary and caught in a blizzard in the wilderness far from any shelter or help. Not to mention the flood they got caught in ("The entire valley, from hill-side to hill-side, was filled with water."), and the bandits they had to deal with. Even reading this in your comfortable abode, wrapped up in the reality of this story you may feel anxious. That is if you can visualize the situations. Sadly, so many these days are so divorced from the natural world that they are likely to be bored with the story.

To those that have a feel for what real wilderness is though, it is a remarkable account. Also, if you've studied the diversity of flora and fauna, this accounting will be a delight, maybe even causing you to reach for your reference books :-)