The death of Paul Walker occurred in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, in November 1959. Paul Walker first went north at the age of 16, when, with a companion, he drove from California to Alaska. During his student days he was a keen climber and a member of the Field and Track Team. He spent one summer as field assistant, working near Thule Air Base in Greenland, and when he graduated from Occidental College, Los Angeles with a degree in geology, he immediately returned to Greenland to work as an Assistant Glaciologist at Red Rock Lake. In October 1956 he went to the Antarctic as an Assistant Glaciologist. Stationed at Ellsworth he worked on the Filchner Ice Shelf, and in October 1957 was selected to go with the traverse party that covered 1,100 miles in 80 days in the area south and west of Ellsworth Station. During the traverse the party narrowly escaped disaster several times when their weasels fell into crevasses. In 1958 he helped at Ohio State University in the working-up of glaciological and geological data from Antarctica. Early in 1959, he was appointed Glaciologist with the USAF Ellesmere Island Ice Shelf Project. He worked in the field from mid-May to early August when he had a brain seizure during a canoe trip. A light plane flew him from the base camp on Ward Hunt Island to Thule, and from there he was flown to California. Despite surgery he died.

In his short life, Paul Walker lived intensely. He was one of a number of young scientists who worked their way through college, served with expeditions and combined a talent for hard work in the field with an ability to tackle the dullest of routine data-processing jobs. Paul Walker was a good friend and a glaciologist of great promise. In view of his wide field experience in the Arctic and the Antarctic, Paul Walker’s death in hospital, after a period of great suffering, is especially tragic.

The Canadian Board on Geographical Names has approved the name “Walker Hill” for the 1,400 ft. high feature on Ward Hunt Island, northern Ellesmere Island, in memory of Paul Walker.—Ed.