Travel journalist and Prospect Heights resident Matthew Power passed away in Uganda on Monday, Men’s Journal reported. He was 39.
Power was following British explorer Levison Wood as he attempted to walk the entire length of the Nile as part of an assignment for the Journal, where he was a regular contributor. The writer was supposed to accompany Wood for an entire week, but became ill and lost consciousness in the middle of the trip and died a few hours later on Monday, the men’s magazine reported. His fellow travelers believe the cause of death was heatstroke.
A contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine who wrote for The New York Times, Outside, GQ, and other publications, Power’s extensive clippings include a feature on the 2008 deaths of 11 mountaineers who attempted to climb the second-highest mountain on Earth, as well as a chronicle of his 5,000-mile motorcycle journey through the Andes. He always wanted to travel, write, and live his life to the fullest, he told The Brooklyn Paper in 2006.
“I wanted to live my life, rather than the life that I figured the world expected of me,” he said. “I just love that feeling of going off the well-trodden path.”
Power was also a journalism fellow in the Knight-Wallace journalism program at the University of Michigan from 2010 to 2011.
A friend and fellow journalist who met Power two years ago at a book party described him as an adventurous writer who cared deeply about humanity.
“It’s rare to meet fellow reporters who are so supportive and generous with their thoughts and contacts. Matt was both,” said Lauren Wolfe, director of the Women’s Media Center’s Women Under Siege blog. “We lost one of our best, that much I know.”
Power is survived by his wife Jessica Benko.
