Frank Cole was an award winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and avid surfer who became the first North American to cross the Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

 alone on camel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, in 1990. This epic odyssey earned Cole a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. His documentary Life Without Death chronicled his experience and won him several prestigious awards as well as being released theatrically in Paris.

Cole was murdered by Tuareg bandits near Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

, Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

, in late October 2000.

Born in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 to a New Brunswick father from the diplomatic field, Cole grew up in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. A well-educated traveller, he studied languages at Carleton University

Carleton University

Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...

 and later 16mm film production at Algonquin College

Algonquin College

Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology is a publicly funded English-language college and member of Polytechnics Canada located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The college serves the National Capital Region and the outlying areas of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec...

 with the legendary documentarian Peter Wintonick

Peter Wintonick

Peter Wintonick is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Montreal. A winner of the 2006 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, former Thinker in Residence for the Premier of South Australia, prolific award winning filmmaker, he is one of Canada's best known international...

. His films include A Documentary, The Mountenays, A Life and Life Without Death.

1990

Obsessed by the death of his grandfather and fear of mortality itself, Cole earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records (French Edition) for his 1990 solo crossing of the Sahara Desert from Mauritania to the Red Sea alone on camel.

2000

In 2000, Cole returned to cross the Sahara again; this time his plan was to cross and then return from the Red Sea back to the Atlantic Ocean. In October 2000, he left Timbuktu for Gao on the sand track known as Autoroute National. He arrived in Ber and departed eastwards after speaking with the Malian Gendarmerie under a date tree.

Hours later, Cole met one or two bandits who murdered him. Cole fought back but could not overpower the attackers. Cole died at sunset and was tied to a small desert shrub tree for reasons unknown.

His killing included the theft of most of his exposed film recordings and camera gear. The last images of his last trip were filmed in Mauritania and shipped back to his family in Ottawa where they now rest. His camels, bought and tattooed in Mauritania, have never been found.

His remains were cryogenically preserved at the Michigan Cryonics Institute in suburban Detroit's Clinton Township. Theories surrounding his life and unsolved death still circulate to this day.