The Forgotten Expedition

THE FORGOTTEN EXPEDITION By Leon R. Powers (June 2010)

The Forgotten Expedition is an expose’ on the most fascinating scientific trek you’ve never heard of. Strangely, this last and most productive of the pioneer biological expeditions into Idaho and Oregon went virtually unnoticed. It has never been scientifically chronicled and only dimly reported. Idaho’s history pundits don’t remember this expedition and the scientific world has yet to learn of its biological bounty. But all that is now changed by this book.

Leon Powers had to be both history detective and expert naturalist in order to exhume and decipher the lost journals of the 1907 Baker University Biological Expedition into Idaho and Oregon. Not since Lewis & Clark has there been a more extensive sampling of early Idaho wildlife. But unlike the much ballyhooed Corps of Discovery, the 1907 expedition unobtrusively receded into hushed obscurity. This story’s intrigue is intensified by the 103-year vanishing act of the old expeditions’ journals and specimen records –lost phantoms of the university’s museum. But through gritty persistence, Powers’ 36 years of sleuthing finally brought to light the dusty records of this old expedition. Enjoy the crescendo of suspense as Powers leads the reader through the compelling unraveling of this mystery of The Forgotten Expedition.

This book gives the first-ever complete scientific reporting of the 153 birds, 37 mammals, and 18 sets of eggs collected on this 1907 expedition. For the benefit of biologists and wildlife watchers, Powers has also woven into the story numerous modern-day observations of biota along stretches of the 1907 route.

Available from Look-About Books, P.O. Box 1907, Nampa, ID 83653. ($15.00 [includes tax] + $3.50 for shipping & handling = $18.50)