Item 2021.06.100 - Bronlund crew meet-up with rescue party on McLeod River trip

• Graphic material

1 photograph : b&w ; 10.5 x 8 cm

Photograph depicts Emil Bronlund, H. Witter, and rescue party alongside two canoes on sleds. A dog is harnessed to one of the sleds. The searching party consisted of E.H. Burden, C.H. Van Somer and Clarence Waldof from Prince George.

The following Prince George Citizen newspaper articles describe the incident:

“Searching Party Sets Out to Look for Emil Bronlund”
Prince George Citizen, April 21, 1932, p. 5

A searching party consisting of E.H. Burden, C.H. Van Somer and Clarence Waldof started out on Tuesday afternoon to look for Emil Bronlund, an engineer connected with the Consolidated Company who has been associated with a local syndicate in prospecting at the headwaters of the McLeod river. According to arrangements made Mr. Bronlund was to have arrived in Prince George last week, coming out by way of Fort McLeod, but in the absence of means of communication it was impossible to learn whether he started or whether he was detained in the vicinity of the area being prospected. Mr. Burden had the broadcasting station CKCD send out a message to J.E. McIntrye, in charge of the Hudson’s Bay post at McLeod, advising that Mr. Bronlund failed to arrive here, and suggesting a search if the missing man had passed the post.
The search party from the end will travel by canoe from Summit Lake to Davie Lake, from which point it will mush over the trail to McLeod. It may be several days before word is received from it.

“Emil Bronlund was held up by bad weather”
Prince George Citizen, April 28, 1932, p. 1

Emil Bronlund, whose delay on the trip from the headwaters of McLeod River occasioned his friends in this city much uneasiness, reached Prince George on Saturday afternoon, accompanied by E.H. Burden and Henry Waldof, who started out some days ago to search for him. Messrs. Burden and Waldof had difficult going. Summit Lake is still frozen, and it was necessary for them on Thursday morning to drag their canoe over four miles of ice until they could strike open water in the Crooked River. Davie Lake was also covered with ice, and they were dragging their canoe over this when they came upon Bronlund and Ham Witter, making their way south in the same tedious way, dragging their boat over the ice. Bronlund explained he had been held up at Fort McLeod on his way out as it was impossible to travel. There was about a foot of water on the ice, and the trail being close to the water level it would have been foolhardy to attempt to come through.
It was at McLeod that Bronlund fell in with Witter. The latter had been trapping in the Nation River section but had been taken ill. He was delirious and unable to eat, and his boys decided to bring him out as far as the fort, and having the patient strapped to a toboggan. Witter improved rapidly at the fort and when Bronlund started south on Wednesday morning he decided to accompany him. They had been on the trail two days when they met Burden and Waldof.
The local syndicate, with which Bronlund is associated, has made a number of locations on the headwaters of McLeod River, and is preparing to do further prospecting to determine more fully the probable values contained in the gravels.