The Rover Boys
by Paul Gilbert

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“In 1957 two Americans, Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady, became legends with the publication of On the Road, a fictional account of a drive across the United States that was less a journey than an opportunity for an intense and performative celebration of self. That same year two Canadians, one an aspiring artist of 24, the other a wildlife biologist just 22, went around the world by road, with nary a thought given to their own place in their unfolding saga. What mattered to them as they traversed the Serengeti, inched through mud forests of Congo, reached India and Nepal, joined military forays into the jungles of Malaya, reaching finally the deserts of Australia, was what lay beyond the shadow of self, everything to be seen and experienced on the very edge of uncertainty and true adventure. Along the way they forged a bond of friendship that would endure for more than sixty years, even as both men left an indelible mark on the world; Robert Bateman as the world’s most celebrated wildlife artist, and Bristol Foster, the scientist singularly responsible for setting aside in perpetuity more than 100 ecological reserves in British Columbia. The Rover Boys is their story, finally told, and it is a glorious account.” Wade Davis OC, Ethnographer, Massey Lecturer & best-selling author of The Wayfinders, Into The Silence and Magdelena.

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Paul Gilbert grew up in Burlington, Ontario. Robert Bateman was his high school art teacher from 1965 to 1970. Paul graduated with a BFA from Mount Allison University. He pursued a career in graphic design, gradually rising to art director and then executive creative director. As creative director, he began merging the visual and writing disciplines leading to a book of poetry, curatorial essays & books and this, his first full length non-fiction. In 2009, Robert Bateman invited him to leave his post as Interim Director, Marketing at the Art Gallery of Ontario to form The Bateman Foundation and lead the creation of The Robert Bateman Centre in Victoria, BC. Paul now lives in the Gatineau at his beloved cottage near Wakefield and in Ottawa across from the National Gallery of Canada. He and his second wife Nancy, raised a combined seven children and now enjoy eleven grandchildren.

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Contributors

Author

Paul Gilbert

Contribution by

Bristol Foster

Contribution by

Robert Bateman