Julian has dubbed his new project the Great African Expedition, and the plan is for him to spend the next five years following in the footsteps of some of the greatest explorers in history, while studying how the Ethnographic make-up of the continent has changed since the 19th century. During the Victorian Age, much of Africa was mapped and explored for the first time. Since then, the ethnic landscape has undergone dramatic transformations, and it should be fascinating to find out what has changed, and what has remained the same.
The first phase of the journey is set to get underway next month, when Fisher will travel overland from Cairo, Egypt to Khartoum, Sudan, along the Nile River. On that expedition, he will be tracing the path taken by British explorer Samuel White Baker back in 1861. When Baker took that route, there were a number of unique and distinct tribes living throughout that region, and Julian will be exploring what has happened to those tribes and the state of the ethnic make-up along the Nile in the 21st century.
The second phase of the expedition will take place later this year, and will begin in Khartoum, and will continue to follow the Nile southward into the new nation of South Sudan. From there, he'll attempt to circumnavigate Lake Albert, before following the Lamia River into the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda. Along the way, he'll continue his study of the changing, and evolving, Ethnographic landscape of Africa.
Fisher outlines the rest of the expedition on his website, where you'll find information on each of the seven phases that he has planned. This will be a difficult and demanding project, as he intends to travel on foot, in dugout canoes, by camel, horse, and other non-motorized modes of transportation. But the Great African Expedition won't just be a grand adventure, it should also be an important study of the current status of the ethnic make-up of that continent.