The author is a semi-retired Canadian exploration geologist, currently an artist and writer. His work as a geologist has taken him to many remote, frontier areas of the world, regions that collectively might be referred to as "the bush," hence the reference in the title to "underbrush." The life of an exploration geologist, while tremendously exhilarating, can at the same time, and certainly during the middle part of the last century when most of the book's content takes place, be described as one of hardship, deprivation, and danger. The process of exploration in wildly varied terrains and circumstances when mixed with the strengths, frailties and often deep cultural cross-currents of the human condition provide the recipe for fascinating experiences to which most urban dwellers are not privy. Laced with hyperbole to lighten often dangerous or uncomfortable circumstances, the events described in these short stories are completely accurate; in some cases embarrassingly so for the author