A Diary Of Tragic Adventure

By Edgar Christian
With an Introduction by B. Dew Roberts and Preface by Dr. Henry C. Link

New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1938, 1st U.S. Edition. [Viii], 159 pp.
Frontispiece of Edgar Christian, 2 ink sketches, 1 map. Publisher’s blue cloth with silver lettering on spine — complete with unclipped dustjacket. Dust jacket is in very good+ complete condition with some fading to spine – all titles on spine legible. An unusually well-preserved copy in Near Fine condition. —Arctic Bibliography 3146

Published posthumously, Christian’s diary is the only first-hand account of John Hornby’s last expedition to the barren ground of Canada’s northwest territories. As Canada’s Department of the interior was creating the boundaries of the Thelon game sanctuary deep in the tundra in 1926, Hornby decided to spend the summer and winter there, living off the land, and persuaded his 18-year-old cousin, Edgar Christian, and a young man named Harold Adler to accompany him. It was Christian’s dream of a lifetime. He was a greenhorn, but knew how to handle a rifle. They started out by canoe in June from Fort Resolution on the Slave River with six months worth of grub, flour, pemmican, bacon, biscuits, etc., traps, rifles and 2000 rounds of ammunition. What happens next is captured in this diary account found two years later by the search party that set out to find the party after they failed to return as planned. Hornby died first. Christian was the last to go. “please don’t blame dear jack,” were the last words he wrote in his diary.

A real no-nonsense account of three men pioneering their way in the vast, untamed subarctic wilderness of the barren-lands. This tragic account by Edgar Christian tells how they did it, and reveals the mistakes they made.

$650.00 -