Adventure Outdoors Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 54

A T H E L E G A c i E S o F MERICA’S Greatest Outdoorsmen From the crazy tales of Ernest Hemingway, to the international celebrity known as Buffalo Bill, these men are the exact measure of greatness that a legacy requires. Explore the lives of these true outdoor legends, and what they did to earn their spot on our list of America’s greatest outdoorsmen. ERNEST HEMINGWAY Ernest Hemingway is the defini- tion of the ultimate badass. He was a writer, a journalist, an avid outdoorsman, a hunter, a fisher- man, and a boxer, among many other things. Hemingway is best known for his works of American fiction, such as The Sun Also Rises , A Farewell to Arms , and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway learned early on from his father how to hunt, fish, and camp, and he and the wilderness were inseparable. From battling giant Marlins in Bi- mini, to stalking big game on African safaris, the Great Hem, or “Big Papa,” was always out- doors – that is, when he wasn’t writing, of course. Africa was perhaps his most beloved destination. He en- joyed the land, and couldn’t get enough of the thrill of big-game hunting. His shares his experi- ences in several of his works, including The Snows of Kiliman- jaro and The Green Hills of Africa. Hemingway became a legend, a man’s man, and noth- ing could take him down – he survived not one, but two plane crashes! He also survived malaria, skin cancer, hepatitis, diabetes, and high blood pres- sure, all of which failed to end Hemingway’s journeys. The only thing that could end him was himself. After a long battle with mental health issues, among his others, Hemingway took his own life with his fa- vorite shotgun in the summer of 1961. He was 62 years old.