Polar Bear (Ursus arctos), 4.7.1930, taxidermied by Holt Renfrew & Co Ltd, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, shot by H E Steele, skin rug with head mount, with open jaw, inscribed and dated in ink and with original taxidermist's label, 206cm across the forelimbs, 225cm long See illustration

This polar skin, with clawed feet, mounted head with open mouth, is 87" from head to tail. It is dated 4.7.30 and was prepared by Holt, Renfrew & Co Ltd Quebec Montreal Toronto Winnipeg (label on reverse). It is attributed to and indeed signed on the back by H E Steele. Harwood Elmes Steele (1897-1978) was a renowned soldier, arctic explorer, journalist and author. His father was the Canadian legend Major General Sir Samuel Benfield Steele, CB, KCMG, MVO (1848-1919) who was a distinguished Canadian soldier and police official. He was only the third officer commissioned into the newly-formed North-West Mounted Police, most famously as head of the Yukon detachment during the Klondike Gold Rush, and commanding officer of Strathcona's Horse during the Boer War.
Many of the leading characters in Harwood Steele's heroic novels are loosely based on his father and the tales reflect the excitement and daring-do of the frontier life which he himself experienced. On 19 June 2008, The Sir Sam Steele Collection was valued by Christie's and repatriated to Canada in a ceremony in Trafalgar Square in London, headed by the Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex . Steele's papers, believed by historians to contain a wealth of previously untold stories that would "re-write Canadian history" had been held by British descendants of Steele, and were returned to Canada via a C$1.8M purchase by the University of Alberta.