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SELWYN TIMES Tuesday <strong>June</strong> <strong>14</strong> <strong>2016</strong> 13<br />
News<br />
boot mark on Arthur’s Pass<br />
He also took part in notable<br />
expeditions to Antarctica and<br />
the Himalayas. In 1961, while<br />
a member of the Mt Makalu<br />
expedition led by Sir Edmund<br />
Hillary, he had played a key role<br />
in saving a fellow climber, Pete<br />
Mulgrew, who became ill at a<br />
high altitude.<br />
As members of the New Zealand<br />
Alpine Club, Mr Ferguson<br />
and Mr Robertson were known<br />
to Mr Harrison, who was chairman<br />
of its Canterbury-Westland<br />
section. When he heard they<br />
had failed to return from their<br />
climb and that bad weather was<br />
moving in, he volunteered for the<br />
search party.<br />
“He said to me that he couldn’t<br />
not be there to try and save them<br />
because they were both really<br />
nice, important young climbers<br />
of tomorrow,” Mrs McGregor<br />
said.<br />
“He was in business on his<br />
own account at that stage as an<br />
artist and designer and he really<br />
probably couldn’t afford to leave<br />
his desk and rush off up a mountain<br />
for a week, but there was no<br />
way he wasn’t going to pull his<br />
weight.”<br />
And so it was that Mr Harrison<br />
was among a group of eight<br />
searchers camped in atrocious<br />
conditions on the mountainside<br />
when they were buried by an<br />
avalanche.<br />
Two of the searchers, Pete<br />
Squires and Ian Gardiner,<br />
dug themselves out and worked<br />
frantically to reach the others.<br />
The tent containing Mr Harrison,<br />
John Wilson and Norman<br />
Hardie was the last to be<br />
reached. All three were pulled<br />
unconscious from the snow but<br />
only Mr Wilson and Mr Hardie<br />
could be revived.<br />
Mrs McGregor still remembers<br />
the visit from the policeman who<br />
told her that Mr Harrison had<br />
died.<br />
“I woke up at 4am in the<br />
morning and knew there would<br />
be a knock on the door. Now,<br />
how you know something like<br />
that, I’m damned if I know, but<br />
I was sitting up in bed waiting<br />
for somebody to knock on the<br />
door and there was the knock,”<br />
she said.<br />
“I said to him, ‘there has been<br />
an accident, hasn’t there? I hope<br />
nobody was killed’ and he said, ‘I<br />
can’t tell you that’ and I said, ‘but<br />
you actually have to – I’m not<br />
going to let you leave until<br />
you tell me exactly what happened<br />
and who it has happened<br />
to’.”<br />
The search for the four climbers<br />
was abandoned soon after Mr<br />
Harrison’s death. Three of their<br />
bodies were recovered over the<br />
next three years, but Mr Wilby<br />
was never found.<br />
While it was his exploits as a<br />
climber which made Mr Harrison<br />
well known, Mrs McGregor<br />
said he had also been an extraordinarily<br />
good artist.<br />
“He was left handed and he<br />
would just sit there, holding<br />
a conversation and drawing a<br />
picture all at the same moment.<br />
When he was down on the ice for<br />
a few months he did a lot<br />
of Antarctic pictures in pastel.”<br />
•Organisers of the commemorations<br />
are looking<br />
for any surviving relatives of<br />
two of the young climbers<br />
who died – Bruce Ferguson<br />
of Christchurch and Colin<br />
Robertson of Invercargill.<br />
Anyone who may be able to<br />
help can get in touch with<br />
John Wilson, PO Box 51-030,<br />
Arthur’s Pass 7654; 318 9118; MOUNTAIN MAN: John Harrison in Antarctica in the summer of<br />
johnmalcolm@xtra.co.nz<br />
1958-59.<br />
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