Mike’s Early Life
In 1974, South Africa was condemned and expelled from the United Nations. Mike was only 8 years old. His father, a sports star, in the colonial game of Rugby, the national sport of South Africa. His father was an icon and hero to the explorer. His mother Blanche Horn was a teacher and together they raised four children and Mike was the oldest boy. Mike learned more from his father an outdoorsman than from any of his teachers. Mike did not want to sit in a classroom and listen to someone, he wanted to go out and experience it. As a boy he excelled in competition from track events to triathlons, playing rugby at a high level. Mike thus pursued a degree in Human Movement Science at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape. However his dream was to compete at the very highest level of sports by going to the Olympic Games, but South Africans weren’t allowed to at that time. Instead, Mike was sent to war.
Horn’s Family
While on the frontlines, Mike’s father was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer and passed away. To fill the void that his father left in his life, Mike wanted to explorer the world. After the war, Mike returned to Johannesburg, but he wasn’t the same. He decided to leave South Africa and ended up in Château-d’Oex in the Swiss Alps where he met his wife Cathy (1963 – 2015) and where they had to children Annika (1993) and Jessica (1994).
TV Shows
Since 2015, Mike takes on the role of survival expert in three French tv channels where he shares his deep knowledge of survival with the shows participants.
