Sheila Burnford
Sheila Burnford (née Sheila Philip Cochrane Every; 11 May 1916 – 20 April 1984 (aged 67)) was a Scottish-born Canadian author who lived in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) and is best known for her 1961 novel The Incredible Journey, the basis for the 1963 Walt Disney film.[1]
Early life
Burnford was born Sheila Philip Cochrane Every in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 11 May 1916.[2] She was educated at schools in England, Edinburgh, France and Germany. During the Second World War she served as a volunteer ambulance driver, and at the age of 20 she was among the first women in Britain to earn an aviator's certificate.[3]
Marriage and move to Canada
In 1941 she married Dr. David Burnford, a paediatrician and former Olympic rower.[4] The couple had three daughters — Peronelle, Jonquil and Juliet — and emigrated to Canada in 1948, settling in Port Arthur, where David went into practice.[3] Their in-town home was 34 Winnipeg Avenue in Mariday Park; the family also kept a camp on West Loon Lake outside the city.
The Incredible Journey
Burnford wrote The Incredible Journey at the West Loon Lake camp; it was published in April 1961 and became an international bestseller. Walt Disney adapted it as a feature film, which had its world premiere in the Lakehead in 1963.[3] A major exhibit on Burnford opened at the Thunder Bay Museum in 2024.[1]
Personal life
Burnford was a close friend of the Port Arthur artist Susan Ross, with whom she shared an interest in Indigenous life and membership in the Port Arthur Puppetry Club. She and David Burnford divorced in 1972. She later married Dr. J.D. Loughborough and returned to England, while continuing to spend time at West Loon Lake, in remote and Arctic communities, and at a writers' retreat in Sussex.
Death
Burnford died of lung cancer in Hampshire, England, on 20 April 1984 — two months before her first husband, David, took his own life in Colorado.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Long Walk Home: The Incredible Journey of Sheila Burnford", National Screen Institute.
- ↑ Sheila Burnford, Wikipedia. Some Thunder Bay sources give her birth year as 1918.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 G.G. Niemi, "Two of My Doctors Who Died by the Gun", Medium, 2022.
- ↑ Olympedia, "David Burnford".
External links
- Long Walk Home: The Incredible Journey of Sheila Burnford — National Screen Institute