Cold Burial: A True Story of Endurance and DisasterJack Hornby was determined to make himself as great a name as George Mallory, Robert Scott, and T.E. Lawrence---self-assured, aristocratic, handsome, his life’s ambition was to prove to his family and to the world that he could survive, even thrive, in one of the most inhospitable regions in the world. During the winter of 1926--1927, Hornby led a foolhardy expedition to the freezing Barren Lands of the Canadian Northwest Territories. The two men he took with him on this doomed Arctic expedition were his courageous but naive eighteen-year-old cousin, Edgar Christian (a descendant of Fletcher Christian, of HMS Bounty fame), and an old friend, Harold Adlard. After tremendous feats of courage, and colossal mistakes in judgment, all three men were to die—their frozen bodies discovered two years later when a Mounty patrol came across their cabin. Perhaps the most chilling discovery of all was a diary kept by Edgar, who managed to stash it away in the stove before he, too, succumbed to cold and starvation. An extraordinary document, Edgar’s diary recounts exactly what happened on that ill-fated expedition and why. Part suspense story, part adventure tale, Cold Burial is the haunting account of an ill-fated journey and the misplaced idealism that inspired it. |
Contents
Hornby of the North I | 1 |
Boyhood Heroes | 16 |
Finest Sons | 27 |
Feast | 40 |
Harold | 58 |
Canoe | 71 |
Towards Resolution | 87 |
Hornbys Channel ΙΟΙ | 101 |
Log Cabin | 148 |
Wind Chill | 161 |
Famine | 173 |
Death on the Thelon | 193 |
Alone | 209 |
Cold Burial | 229 |
Verdicts | 241 |
The Death of a Lancer | 253 |
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A. N. Hornby animals April Arctic Artillery Lake Athabaska Barren Ground Barren Lands bones Bron Dirion Bullock bunk cabin cache camp Canada Canadian canoe captain caribou Chesterfield Inlet Chipewyan cold Colonel Christian cousin Critchell death dogs Dover College Dubawnt River Edgar and Harold Edgar's diary Edmonton England Eskimo expedition father feeling fish Fort Reliance Fort Resolution Fort Smith George Douglas grub Guy Blanchet Hanbury hide hope Hornby's Hudson's Bay Company hunting Indian Jack and Harold Jack Hornby Jack's James Critchell-Bullock journey killed knew later letter living look meat migration miles months Mount Coleman move musk-ox musk-oxen never night North Olwen Onoway Ottawa outfit packed paddling ptarmigan Reliance rifle seemed shot Slave Lake snow stove Thelon River thought took trappers traps trees trip walk weather weeks wind winter wolverine wood writing wrote