The Enchanted Quest of Dana and Ginger Lamb

Chapter 2 ENCHANTED VAGABONDS

CHAPTER 2 ENCHANTED VAGABONDS "Enchanted Vagabonds" had been the theme of Dana and Ginger Lamb's lectures in the late 1930s and early 1940s. When they resumed their speaking careers for the 1950s, it remained (with "Maya Vagabonds" and "Mexican Carousel") one of the choices offered for an evening's program or part of a three-night series. As their promotional copy noted, it presented "The HIGHLIGHTS and INSIDE story of America's best selling travel book, Enchanted Vagabonds (a Harper 'Find,' now in its 18th edition)." In their lecture "The Lambs tell you why and how they made their hazardous, three year, 16,000 mile voyage in a 16 foot canoe from San Diego to Panama." This, of course, had taken place in the 1930s, but remained a spellbinding tale for audiences. As a visual aid, Dana and Ginger had more recently shot thirty minutes of color film to illustrate a typical day "of the LONG VOYAGE: landing through crashing surf, setting up camp, foraging for food, making fire and fresh water, and cooking a jungle banquet." This combination of personal interest and instructional intent changed the way their book was received, deflecting criticism from older reviews that it was nothing more than a series of pot-boiling adventures. Read today, Enchanted Vagabonds comes across as a blend of adventure and repose, but always with an emphasis on how 43 ENCHANTED VAGABONDS this brave pair was showing the world that it could be done: not just traveling 16,000 miles in a canoe, but survivingand, at times, living comfortably with no resources beyond one's basic skills. For publication, Dana is listed as principal author, with the indication that the book has been written "in collaboration with June Cleveland." Dana and Ginger had always kept journals, and would continue to do so; when Ginger was listed as co-author of Quest for the Lost City, it would be for her redrafting of their daily logs. Enchanted Vagabonds is most obviously Dana and Ginger's book, with the point of viewshared comfortablybetween "I" and "we" (the former used only when Dana is acting individually). Occasionally there are pauses in the narrative for lush descriptions, virtual set pieces that suggest how June Cleveland might have drawn from the literary models she knew so well. But Dana and Ginger themselves were not literary people, and it says something that their initial contact with the world of books was the woman who sold them at Bullock's Department Store in LosAngeles. An unusual production format gets the book underway. Even before its formal title page, Enchanted Vagabonds presents thirtyone pages with no lessthan forty-eightphotos of the journey, almost every one of which includesDana or Ginger or both. A photographer, of course, did not accompany the Lambs; a time-delay on the shutter did the trick, as would a similar device added to the 16-millimeter movie camera they carried on subsequent trips. Thus the reader's first impression of this expedition centers on the people who took it, pictured at key points in "how-to-do-it" poses—the same style that would characterize the Lambs' lectures. They are shown building the canoe (how small it is!), distilling seawater to make it drinkable, repairing their minimal equipment, and improvising meals, which nonetheless look delicious. Poses with flora and fauna are in the period style: Tarzan-and-Jane-like, right down to the costumes. Climaxing the series are shots of the Lambs in their tiny canoe, the Vagabunda, as they paddle through the Panama Canal. Does this spoil the suspense?Hardly, because for this book suspense is not the 44 ENCHANTED VAGABONDS issue. As more than one commentator would note of their careers, proof that the Lambs' adventures were not too unbelievably extreme was that they had survived to write the book, show the movie, and give lectures about the events. Here they are, the photos say; now let's learn how they did it. Fittingly, it is the voice of civilization that is heard first. "You can't take that young girl to Panama in any canoe," a dour lady complains in the book's first lines. "Why . . . the whole idea is ridiculous. We are here to stop you—if we have to get out an injunction !" (p. 1). The unnamed person is speaking for a committee of five—a social organization, so to speak, and one that is ready...