Sir John Richardson: The Pioneering Scottish Explorer Who Gardened with Death

June 5, 1865

On this day, we bid adieu to Sir John Richardson, a botanist and Scottish explorer whose remarkable journey through this mortal coil came to its conclusion.

Dear readers, prepare yourselves for a tale that would make even the hardiest of gardeners clutch their pruning shears in shock!

Richardson adventured alongside his companion John Franklin, embarking on explorations that would test the very limits of human endurance. Their first expedition to the Northern Coast of Canada proved nothing short of catastrophic. Following a shipwreck of most dramatic proportions, the men separated into groups in desperate attempts to return to civilization. Richardson's party was reduced to scraping lichen from rocks and—I dare say—consuming the leather of their own boots!

Now, my curious gardeners, imagine the horror of what followed.

After hearing the report of a gunshot echoing through the wilderness, Richardson and his companions discovered one Monsieur Terohaute standing over the lifeless body of a fellow explorer.

The scoundrel claimed the poor soul had accidentally dispatched himself! Richardson, being of sound medical judgment, examined the body and found the man had been shot in the back of the head—a peculiar angle for a self-inflicted wound, wouldn't you agree?

More disturbing still, the party suspected Terohaute had engaged in cannibalization to sustain them all. Convinced this villain intended to make meals of the remaining party members, Richardson took decisive action and shot Terohaute dead.

One cannot help but wonder if Richardson later used this man as fertilizer for his botanical specimens—though propriety prevents me from speculating further!

Richardson's legacy lives on in our gardens and wilderness alike, immortalized in the nomenclature of countless plants, fish, birds, and mammals. The Richardson's ground squirrel and Richardson's owl both bear his name, ensuring gardeners curse him properly when these creatures disturb their carefully tended beds!

In his capacity as a naval physician, he collaborated with Florence Nightingale—imagine the conversations between these two formidable personalities as they discussed both the healing arts and the natural world!

As his biographer David A. Stewart so aptly observed:

"[Richardson] ....was perhaps a life of industry more than a life of genius, but it was a full, good life, and in many ways a great life.

It is not every day that we meet in one person - surgeon, physician, sailor, soldier, administrator, explorer, naturalist, author, and scholar, who has been eminent in some roles and commendable in all."

Indeed, we gardeners might learn from Richardson's versatility. After all, are we not also explorers of soil, naturalists of our domains, and occasionally executioners of garden pests when necessity demands?

Let us raise our trowels in salute to a man who knew that survival, like gardening, sometimes requires one to make difficult choices in the wilderness of life!