Cold Burial

An heartwrenching account of a lunatic Arctic expedition by three English men, who perished in the attempt, leaving poignant diaries and letters. The diary left by the longest surviving and youngest member of the party (discovered two years after their death) is the centre of the book.

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In the clear, bright Spring of 1926 three Englishmen set off into the remote wilderness of Canada, the Barren Lands. One of them, Jack Hornby, was already a legendary figure. "Hornby of the North" prided himself on his ability to live off the land. He feared the incursion of "the white man" into these beloved open spaces where the caribou and musk oxen migrated in enormous numbers. Hornby had abandoned England, but on his last trip home he had met up with a young cousin, Edgar Christian. Edgar was 17, and eager to make something of his life. His heroic and charismatic cousin promised to take him to Canada. Edgar would make his fortune by learning Jack's skills at trapping. Harold Adlard made the third man of the party. He too hoped to make his name and his fortune in the wilderness. "Cold Burial" is the extraordinary and gripping tale of their journey and the idealism and the aspirations that lay behind it. Hornby's stamina was quite properly the stuff of legend but unknown to Edgar and Harold he had tested it to the edge in a previous journey into the Barren Lands with Captain James Critchell-Bullock.
They had barely survived the winter and both carried lessons from that experience; lessons with quite fatal consequences. Based on Edgar Christian's heart-rending journal and letters and the writings of Critchell-Bullock, "Cold Burial" is a haunting and compelling story of obsession, folly and fortitude.