UNIQUE CAREER ENDED

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6735, 11 October 1928, Page 10

UNIQUE CAREER ENDED

ADVENTURES IN CANADA. SON OF FAMOUS CRICKETER. OTTAWA.. The career of an Anglo-Canadian explorer of unique characteristics has come to an end, it is believed by starvation, in the Ear North. He was John Hornby. His body ana those of two companions, were found by a mounted policeman near the mouth of the Thelon River, after he had surveyed the country east of the Mackenzie River. A son of the famous English cricketer of that name, Hornby came to Canada many years ago, with a spirit of adventure allied to his career as a noted long-distance runner. He established a record, to win a private wager, by running from Calgary to Edmonton.

The barren lands of the North attracted Hornby before the war. In this almost limitless stretch of territory, natives find it difficult to subsist by following hard on tho heels ot the ever-migrating caribou. Hornby loved this country, although there was no firewood for hundreds of miles. He knew every trick" in the battle for existence there.

When news reached Hornby that war had broken out, he travelled with all speed to Edmonton, over thousands of weary miles from the Arctic, and joined up. He served with distinction- till he was wounded and invalided. He returned to the North-west in tho fall of 1917 and wintered alone at the northern end of Great Bear Lake He returned to England in 1923, but two years later saw him in the North again, and he suffered considerable hardship near Great Slave Lake. Tho following summer he and A. C. Bullock, who accompanied him, reached Chesterfield Inlet by canoe, over the country he is now reported dead in. “I have known Hornby for 16 years," says Inspector Lananze, of the North-west Police. “He is frequently mentioned in G. M. Douglas ’ book, ‘Lands Forlorn.’ I last met him in Newfoundland in 1926. He was a very daring traveller. Happy-go-lucky chap, he was neither scientist nor prospector, but be travelled for his own pleasure. He could always live off the country with his rifle and fishing net. He travelled even lighter than the Indians, and his good nature often caused him suffering, while the Indians fed at his expense.”