I Went to Tristan...

My grandfather, Allan Bryant Crawford, was born in 1912 and died in 2007. His many titles included engineer, meteorologist, cartographer, surveyor, postage stamp designer, author, and explorer. One of his areas of expertise was the Island of Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. He first went to Tristan in 1937 with the Norwegian Scientific Expedition as their official surveyor, and he produced the first map of Tristan da Cunha for the British Admiralty, which is still in use to this day.

He was the leading authority on Tristan for almost seventy years and he wrote several books on Tristan over the decades. I was very excited to recently receive my third first-edition copy of his book, I Went to Tristan, published in 1941. I plan on giving a copy to Riaan and Eliza when they are a little bit older. :)

As a postscript, Candace and I followed in my grandfather's footsteps and visited Tristan da Cunha back in 2013. You can read about our adventures in this post and the following several blog posts from that visit!

 Basic map of Tristan da Cunha on the inside of the front cover.

The Norwegian Scientific Expedition in Cape Town prior to departure for Tristan. My grandfather is standing at the right.