IN ARCTIC WASTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1938, Page 6

IN ARCTIC WASTES

DEATHS IN CANADIAN BLIZZARD NOTED EXPLORER LOSES HIS LIFE. FOUR INDIANS ALSO PERISH. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 12.55 p.m.) OTTAWA, December 28. Out of Arctic wastes the Government radio crackled today with reports of a terrific blizzard. Mr R. J. Bray, a British explorer and ornithologist, was drowned from an ice-crushed boat in Fox Channel. Mr Patrick Baird, a companion on a British Museum expedition, was rescued by an Eskimo. Mr Bray had already achieved fame in London for his collection of rare Arctic birds.

Mr Ben Matthews, a trapper, and four Indians, including two women, short of food, who left Weensusk for a Hudson Bay post seventy-five miles distant, were trapped by the blizzard. Matthews went ahead and secured sup*plies and returned. He found the four others frozen to death, almost within sight of the post. Mr D. Turner, a trapper and former member of the Mounted Police, slipped on ice and stunned himself. When ■he recovered, his mitts had blown away and his hands were frozen. He Was semi-delirious from pain, but dug himself into a snowdrift and remained buried for three days until the storm subsided, when he grimly battled 18 miles to a companion's cabin. He was brought over a trail to the Churchill Hospital. He will lose both hands by amputation and perhaps both feet.