Mapping the Frontier by Rufus Harvey Sargent

Globe Pequot Publishing] Alaska in 1900 was unexplored frontier, a land where risk, danger, and ultimate adventure made teamwork essential. Maine native R. Harvey Sargent led the U. S. Geological Survey in Alaska for over three decades, 1901-1936, charting the vast expanses of this remarkably beautiful and treacherous land. A pioneer of modern mapping, Sargent introduced 20th-century “firsts”: photogrammetry and aerial surveys in Alaska, and the first professional surveys of China’s mountainous interior. Mapping the Frontier: A Memoir of Discovery from Coastal Maine to the Alaskan Rim publishes for the first time Harvey Sargent’s diary of his explorations in the world’s outer edges, from China to Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Montana, and Alaska. He was the son of a sea captain, born with exploration and adventure in his veins. Grounded in the foundations of his childhood home of Sedgwick, Maine, to his family residence for a half-century with USGS in Washington, D. C., Sargent’s lively