Cold Burial: A True Story of Endurance and Disaster
by Clive Powell-Williams
On This Page
Description
For schoolboys in the 1920s, too young to have experienced first-hand the horrors of World War One, theirs was yet the age of adventure. Their imaginations fired by the exploits of Robert Scott, T. E. Lawrence, Ernest Shackleton, and George Mallory, and by the novels of John Buchan and Jack London, they dreamed of exploring and conquering new frontiers. Lawrence had retreated from public life, and Scott, Shackleton, and Mallory were by then all dead, but their heroic feats remained the show more measure of British manhood, the standard to be carried forward. In the Spring of 1926, Edgar Christian, a young man of eighteen fresh out of public school, joined his dashing cousin, the legendary (if somewhat self-styled) adventurer Jack Hornby, and a friend named Harold Adlard on an expedition into the Barren Lands of the Canadian Northwest Territories. The plan was to hunt caribou and trap for fur. For young Edgar, the Barrens expedition offered a chance to prove himself and to find his direction in life; for Hornby, a veteran of the Great War as well previous forays into the Northwest (he was known in some quarters as "Hornby of the North"), it represented his latest date with disaster. Together they would demonstrate that civilized men could survive, even thrive, in one of the world's most inhospitable regions. They were proved wrong. Based in large part upon a diary left behind by Edgar, discovered when his body and those of his companions were found two years after their deaths, Clive Powell-Williams' account of the expedition is a gripping narrative of innocence and experience, youthful idealism and unyielding nature. It matters little that we know in advance the tragic outcome, for in its unfolding Cold Burial recounts a tale of courage, folly, and ultimately redemptive love that will haunt readers long after they've read the last page. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
bluepiano Strikingly similar stories: An apparently knowledgeable and actually irresponsible adventurer sallies forth into the Arctic with two admiring and trusting younger men. All six die. Both books make good use of journals kept by the expeditions' youngest members.
Member Reviews
This was an effort to read, and not written in the most engaging way. However, I managed to finish it, and the author had obviously researched well, and there was a lot of detail about how to survive/or not against all the odds - so I'm glad I finished it.
A tragic story rendered from the diary of a young boy wintering with his uncle & another companion in the artic wilderness.
He was the last survivor of the three.
A very good, but very sad tale.
He was the last survivor of the three.
A very good, but very sad tale.
Thelon River Valley (N.W.T. and Nunavut) >/Description and travel/Hornby, John, 1880-1927/Christian, Edgar Vernon, 1908-1927/Christian, Edgar Vernon, 1908-1927 > Diaries/Adlard, Harold, 1898-1927/Biography/Adventure and adventurers > Thelon River Valley/(N.W.T. and Nunavut) > Biography/Wilderness survival > Thelon River Valley/(N.W.T. and Nunavut)/Starvation/Extreme environments > Thelon River Valley
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Favourite Discoveries Through LT
12 works; 2 members
Author Information
1 Work 50 Members
Clive Powell-Williams is a teacher at St. Martin's School in Middlesex, England. He was introduced to Edgar Christian's diary by the archivist at Dover College. Fascinated by what he read, Powell-Williams spent nine years researching the story behind the diary.
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Jack Hornby; Edgar Christian; Harold Adlard
- Important places
- The Barrens, Canada
- Dedication
- To Ronnie Taylor, Historian, Scotsman and Friend
- Blurbers
- Wheeler, Sara
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 50
- Popularity
- 601,348
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.38)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
