Vista Nieve: The Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth Century Naturalist and His Family in Colombia, South America [Paperback]

Melbourne Romaine Carriker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

This is a biography of the author's maternal grandparents, Orlando and Eva Flye, from the United States, who after several failed attempts, developed a highly successful coffee plantation, Hacienda Cincinnati, on the high mountain slopes of the Sierra Nevada in northern Colombia in the early 1900s. The narrative further documents the significant contributions of ornithologist, entomologist, naturalist of tropical America, Melbourne A. Carriker, Jr., father of the author, who significantly elarged the tropical bird collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Carnegie Museum, and other museums. By his side was Carmela Flye, whose tireless spirit and efficiency contributed significantly to her husband's bird and bird-lice collecting and the development and running of their own coffee plantation, Hacienda Vista Nieve, adjacent to Hacienda Cincinnati.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Characters will remain etched in the hearts and minds of readers, and be remembered with great fondness, respect, and admiration. -- Kathy Sparrow, Editor, Blue Mantle Press, Press Release, Masr. 7, 2001

Delightful reading, intermixing family history with natural history; recollections of a lad interwoven with sage ecological obserations of a scientist. -- Ellis Yochelson, Science Books & Films, July/August 2002

This most interesting and unusual combination biography/autobiography explores an area and an historic period unfamiliar to the general public. -- Victor and Deborah Kennedy, National Shellfisheries Association Quarterly Newsletter, May 2002

About the Author

Melbourne R. Carriker is Professor Emeritus at the College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, where he retired in 1985. During his 42-year career in marine biology-ecology he taught and conducted research at Rutgers University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the U. S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Laboratory in Oxford, Maryland, and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

He has published well over 160 scientific papers primarily in the field of marine malacology (the study of the Mollusca, or shellfish)."Vista Nieve" is his first book; a second, "Taming of the Oyster, A Popular History of Evolving Shellfisheries" is in press. Dr. Carriker has advised 17 doctoral and 18 masters students at universities, and is the past president of the American Malacological Society, the National Shellfisheries Association, and the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society.

Professor Carriker was born in Santa Marta, Colombia in 1915 and lived the first 12 years of his life on Hacienda Vista Nieve with his parents. The Carrikers emigrated to New Jersey, United States, in 1927. He is married to Meriel Roosevelt McAllister. They have four grown children: Eric, Bruce, Neal, and Robert; three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. The author enjoys writing, reading, gardening, and travel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Blue Mantle Pub (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966548523
• ISBN-13: 978-0966548525
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,648,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Family's Paradise Lost in Columbia, October 23, 2006

By 

Brian Allen "neotropical birding" (Manistee, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vista Nieve: The Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth Century Naturalist and His Family in Colombia, South America (Paperback)

I looked forward to reading this book as I am very interested in Natural History and birding. The cover of the book wetted my appetite with its' backdrop of a verdant Andean mountain view and an overlay of a field guide image of antbirds. The subtitle is "The Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth Century Naturalist and His Family in Colombia, South America".

The start of the book details the lives of the author's grandparents as they move from the United States and become pioneer coffee growers in Colombia. This account consumes about 60 pages and while interesting it was not what I had hoped for the book. It became more what I expected on page 64 with the telling of the travels of Meb Carriker to Costa Rica and then eventually to Venezuala and Colombia. The sections about Meb Carriker's expeditions are amazing. At one time in the lowland forests of Venezuala he suffers from amoebic dysentery and facing death far from medical care thinks of a way to inject a concoction of mercury into his colon and cure himself! After Meb settles in Colombia and starts his own coffee plantation near Santa Marta he marries and has several children (the eldest is the author of the book). He continues his bird collecting expeditions into Colombia with the help of his wife that comes along even on one trip with their seven-month old daughter accross swamps, jungles and mountain paramo.

As someone interested in natural history in general and birds in particular I was a bit disappointed in the lack of specific identifications of the birds, trees and other fauna and flora in the area of Vista Nieve and Colombia. I have a much richer vicarious travel experience (which I need living here in cold cloudy Michigan) from reading natural history accounts that do accurately name the features of the environment. I am suprised the author didn't do this as in the book he claims an interest in ornithology before taking up his profession in marine biology.

Another complaint about the book is that after reading a bit more than I wanted to about the start up of no less than four plantations and all the relatives involved,the author includes several chapter postscripts on relatives biographies. It almost seemed as if he was writing this for his family.

Despite the heavy focus on the author's family I did enjoy the book and felt that I learned much about a way of life that I might not have wanted to read if it wasn't included in this description of a fascinating section of South America.

This is about a "Paradise Lost". Another postscript details what has happened to the area around Santa Marta since the idyllic days of the pioneering coffee plantations, extensive forests, and festive retreats of the area. If you get to this point of the book (and you should) and care to help in the conservation of the area please help the work of the American Bird Conservancy and the Colombian conservation group Fundacion ProAves. They are working to protect some of the remaining wonders that are described in this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A lovely story of early Colombia, June 22, 2004

By 

Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vista Nieve: The Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth Century Naturalist and His Family in Colombia, South America (Paperback)

"Vista Nieve," by Melbourne R. Carriker is a lovely story about a remarkable naturalist and a daring coffee pioneer in the beautiful Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain region of Colombia. To this end, the story is told from an interesting perspective...because the naturalist is the author's father and the daring coffee pioneer is the author's grandfather.

Melbourne (Mel) Armstrong Carriker, Jr. is the world famous naturalist who between 1902 and 1962 collected some 80,000 birds and mammals (mostly birds). Moreover, Mel described more genera and species (approximately 919) of Mallophaga than any other entomologist to date. His work is celebrated at the Smithsonian, the Carnegie Museum, the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and the Chicago Field Museum. However, it must be noted that bird lovers will be frustated with the author because he rarely takes the time to name any of the thousands of specimens found in Colombia.

Orlando Lincoln Flye, born on a farm in Winslow, central southern Maine in 1861 is the coffee pioneer. The Flye's had been in America early on...Orlando's maternal great-great-grandfather, Josiah Hayden, Sr., was a colonel in the American Revolutionary War. A dedicated student, Orlando received an outstanding education in electrical engineering...took the important position of general electrician with the Proctor and Gamble Company in Cincinnati, Ohio...and in 1890 accepted an invitation from the Colombian Telephone & Telegraph Company in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Eventually, Orlando tired of the booming telephone business in Colombia and with his substantial savings turned to the romantic business of coffee-growing. However, it was not easy...Orlando suffered a number of setbacks and after years of costly trials learned that coffee plants required a milder, cooler, more moist climate at a higher altitude to prosper. Finally, in 1898 Orlando carves Hacienda Cincinnati out of the San Lorenzo range connected to Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. He works hard...becomes a success...and eventually formed the Cincinnati Coffee Company...then the powerful Santa Marta Coffee Company and in 1927 became a founding member of the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia.

This is a good book. Although the author is guilty of "purple prose" from time to time. The author also turns a blind eye to the labor problems of the infamous United Fruit Company, perhaps because his two sisters married company men? Still and all this is a great book for a vivid insight to early Colombia.

Bert Ruiz