Marten Hartwell

Marten Hartwell (1925 – April 2, 2013) was a German-Canadian bush pilot in the Canadian Arctic. The pilot was rescued after 31 days. Since the pilot was injured and unable to obtain local food, and emergency rations had run out, the pilot was forced to consume flesh from one of the dead passengers.

Biography Leopold Herrmann, born in 1925 in Germany, was given military flight training in 1944, In 1958 he obtained a West German pilot's licence and emigrated to Canada in 1967. He was in the process of legally changing his name to Marten Hartwell at the time of the accident.

Crash

On November 8, 1972, Hartwell was given a charter to fly from Cambridge Bay, Northwest Territories (now Nunavut) with three passengers who had just arrived from Spence Bay; a pregnant Inuk woman named Neemee Nulliayok, a 14-year-old Inuk boy named David Pisurayak Kootook (who was suffering from appendicitis), and an attending government nurse named Judy Hill. For weeks the two survived the brutally harsh weather where the average temperature was . Kootook was instrumental in the pair's survival by erecting a tent and making fires. He died after the 20th day whereupon the pilot survived by eating part of the leg of the nurse.

Search The initial search, which lasted three weeks, failed to find any trace of the Hartwell plane and was called off. After a three day pause the search was reopened by the Minister of Defence, James Richardson, and Hartwell was found alive 31 days after the crash. The search cost about one million Canadian dollars, the most costly search and rescue operation in Canadian aviation history to that date.

Inquiry The international interest in the loss of the plane was demonstrated by the sudden arrival in Yellowknife of the international press corps. Hartwell gave a lengthy interview to the Observer after his rescue, but did not cooperate in any attempt to portray the story in film or on television.

Although Hartwell refused to attend the Yellowknife inquest into the loss of the plane and its passengers a lot of evidence about Hartwell was presented to the Yellowknife inquest. The inquest was told that members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) who inspected Hartwell's camp had found small plastic bags containing human remains. Hartwell greeted his rescuers by saying: "Welcome to the camp of a cannibal." He was also awarded, posthumously in 1994, the Meritorious Service Cross, which is awarded for "a deed or an activity that has been performed in an outstandingly professional manner, or with uncommonly high standards."

The Spence Bay nurse, Judy Hill, was born at Kingsbridge, England. Judy Hill's mother was a matron at a local hospital. In 1977 a BBC reporter, Jim McDougall, published a book titled Angel of the Snow about Judy Hill. According to McDougall a Judy Hill Memorial Fund was organised and contributions was made from around the world. The money is used to help in the training of nurses.

McDougall says that Neemee and David were buried in a private plot in Edmonton. Judy Hill's body was taken to Banff where she was cremated and her ashes were scattered by Judy's boyfriend Chris at a quiet place on the Bow River.