The River of Doubt

In late 1913, Theodore Roosevelt, 55, joined the Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon on an expedition down the Rio da Dúvida, the River of Doubt, a river that had never been mapped.

It was far harder than planned. Rapids smashed their dugout canoes, forcing them to haul boats through the jungle and carve new ones. Food ran short. One man drowned, and another killed a companion and fled into the forest.

Roosevelt gashed his leg trying to save canoes in the rapids. The wound became infected, and he was struck by fever. At his lowest point he told his son Kermit to leave him behind so the others could survive. Kermit refused.

After two months they reached a known river. Roosevelt had lost about a quarter of his body weight and never fully recovered. But the river was mapped, hundreds of miles of it, and Brazil renamed it the Rio Roosevelt. He had said it was his last chance to be a boy.