Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Hans Heinrich Maximilian (Henry) Busse was born in Germany in 1896. A veteran of WWI, he studied agriculture at Bonn University. He was married for a brief period in the 1920s but separated from his wife after a few years, with whom he had one daughter. He immigrated to Canada in 1927 and worked at a number of farms and businesses through western Canada. In 1939 he was interned as an enemy alien as he did not yet have his naturalization papers. Released in 1943, he eventually got work as a pipefitter's helper at Eldorado Mining and Refining at Great Bear Lake, where he joined the photography club, improving on the skills he had learned in the 1930s running a darkroom in an Edmonton stationary store. In July 1947 Busse moved to Yellowknife where, encouraged by Father Gathy, he opened Yellowknife's first commercial photography business, Yellowknife Photo Service. His photographic work received international attention and awards. His pictures also appeared in numerous magazines, including National Geographic, which ran a layout of his colour photographs of northern lights. On September 28 1962, Henry Busse chartered Ken Stockhall's Cessna 185 for a photographic assignment in the Nahanni Valley, joined by Gunther Geortz and Vic Hudon from Giant mine as passengers. The group didn’t return at their scheduled time. Despite a two-month air search, their plane was not discovered until June 1963, crashed in a valley near Cli Lake.