An Adventurer’s Relics And His Living Collection

KUROHIME, Japan - The suzumebachi has a giant yellow head with 5 eyes, a black thorax and gold and tan stripes on its abdomen. The world’s largest hornet extends its 4-inch wings, able to launch a stinger capable of inflicting paralysis - even dying - after which a bug zapper smashes down, and the insect splatters on a novel penned by its killer. KUROHIME, Japan - The suzumebachi has a giant yellow head with five eyes, a black thorax and gold and tan stripes on its abdomen. The world’s largest hornet extends its 4-inch wings, able to launch a stinger capable of inflicting paralysis - even loss of life - and then a bug zapper smashes down, and the insect splatters on a novel penned by its killer. "My son-in-regulation nearly died from a sting," C.W. Nicol, the bushy-bearded explorer turned writer, explained. With spears, bows and pronged ninja sais inside attain in his cluttered examine, it’s shocking he didn’t use one on the hornet.



The workplace can also be residence to keepsakes from a vagabond life in the Arctic, Africa and these remote mountains. Late-Edo-interval scrolls and woodblock prints of English troopers, a devil-horned Japanese spirit mask, a strip of bowhead whale scrimshaw, books ranging from shipbuilding guides to his personal writings, walrus ivory and soapstone carvings from Canada, coral fossils, an enormous 4-foot-lengthy seashell combed from an Okinawan seaside. His first novel was "Harpoon," and an actual nineteenth-century one hangs on the mantel. "It’s junk that’s collected," he laughs. Nicol, 77, settled in this Japanese highland hamlet in Nagano in 1980 together with his spouse, Mariko, a classical composer and painter. Her enormous watercolor of dancing winter sparrows hangs of their living room. Nicol, a shotokan karate expert and maker of nature specials, is most pleased with his Afan Woodland Trust, a living assortment and a legacy: a 150-acre forest that is his residence and houses nearly 150 forms of bushes, uncommon species that includes forty five kinds of dragonflies, work horses and a stable made from reclaimed birch designed by architect Nobuaki Furuya.



Some furnishings - and the firewood - are made from false acacia culled from the forest. "We introduced again a lifeless forest," he says proudly. He did it without using any heavy machinery past two horses and elbow grease, he says, pouring a gin infused with sansho berries from his yard and chilled with what he swears is 10,000-12 months-old Antarctic ice. The man has always relished extremes: leaving his native Wales to join an Arctic expedition at 17, killing two polar bears in self-protection whereas wintering on Baffin Island, arresting 244 suspected poachers and ZapZone Defender bandits as Ethiopia’s first game warden. Now, Nicol hopes to convince the government of the significance of protecting forests. These are edited excerpts from the dialog. A: The one that has the biggest story is that previous kudlik oil lamp in my examine. I found it on a small island in Cumberland Sound, Canada, in 1966, in a collapsed Inuit hut.



In the ‘30s, there was an influenza epidemic, so the whole camp died. I was with an Inuit on the camp. He said there have been ghosts there. But he informed his dad and mom, who had family there, that I used to be praying. That impressed them they usually requested me for tea and they stated "it belonged to our ancestors. Would you like it? " They advised me it was over 1,000 years previous. Even damaged, they still used it for years, lashed along with seal leather-based. They let me have it, so I introduced it home. A: These are all from Cumberland Sound. I lent them to an exhibition and they lost the tusks. They’re all from Nunavut. A: ZapZone Defender When Perry’s black ships came, they issued a three-quantity report in 1854. I bought one set for $1,000. There was one other set that had been damaged, so I purchased that, too, and that’s certainly one of the images from it. A: Prince Charles came in 2009. The next yr, I was invited to his place in Britain, Highgrove. A: After i came right here I wanted to learn these mountains, not simply as a mountain hiker, but I needed to know the legends and the place the bears hibernated and so forth. I got a Japanese gun license, which is troublesome, and i walked these mountains with the native hunters, studying the legends. During that time, I found so much cutting of outdated-progress forest by the federal government. So I decided, if I may leave behind even a small forest, I’d do it. Copyright 2025 New York Times News Service.