Roderick Haig-Brown
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Roderick Haig-Brown (February 21, 1908 — October 19, 1976) was a Canadian writer and conservationist.
Born in Lancing, Sussex, England, his father, Alan Haig-Brown, was a teacher and a prolific writer who published hundreds of articles and poems on sports, the military and on educational issues in various periodicals. His paternal grandfather, William, was headmaster of the Charterhouse School for thirty-three years. William died when Roderick was a young child, and his father, Alan, soon followed. Alan became a soldier during World War I and left home when Roderick was six. He would return periodically until 1918 when he was killed in action. Roderick had a high regard for his father and describes him in an essay entitled “Alan Roderick Haig Brown” as “an Edwardian: one of the young, the strong, the brave and the fair who had faith in their nation, their world and themselves” (27).
His mother, Violet Mary Pope, was the daughter of a large family of wealthy and well-educated brewers. When Alan died, Roderick and his mother went to live with her family in Dorsetshire where Roderick spent the rest of his childhood. His grandfather Pope was an industrious man with very strong Victorian values of “service, fair play, decency and acceptance of the obligations that follow with the privilege of class and education” (Robertson 6). He was a school fellow of Thomas Hardy and took young Roderick to tea there on at least one occasion. Roderick later noted in his essay “Hardy’s Dorset” that he regretted not having elicited more information from Hardy about being a writer, but he was sixteen then and was passionate about fishing and hunting. Living on the Frome River with its wild surroundings was more fascinating to him than “the past or its old men” (“Hardy’s Dorset” 43). His many uncles loved sport and taught him to fish and shoot, but it was a family friend, Major Greenhill, who served as Roderick’s sporting mentor and taught him both the skills and the ethics of sportsmanship.
His physical and social childhood environment contributed, according to Robertson, to Roderick’s code of conduct. Throughout his life he adhered to an ideal balanced between reason and passion, an ideal infused with knowledge and tempered by responsibility, decency and fair play. This code “invoke[d] a mental and physical discipline that [went] beyond making a successful catch or kill; its central virtue [was] knowledge, intimate and thorough, transcending pursuit” (8).
Haig-Brown eventually found his way to British Columbia, Canada through a series of unexpected events. After he was expelled from Charterhouse School for drinking and sneaking out, he joined his father’s regiment for a short while, but found that army life was too restrictive. He then decided that the Colonial Civil Service might be a more agreeable alternative but he was too young to write the exams. He asked his mother to be allowed to visit an uncle in Seattle, Washington provided he come back when he was eligible for civil service. He worked at a lumber camp in Washington, then crossed the border to Canada because of visa problems. He so enjoyed his experience in British Columbia that he remained three years to work at Nimpkish Lake on Vancouver Island as a logger, a professional fisherman and an occasional guide to visiting anglers. He returned to England in 1931 and worked for a short time as a journalist. Even though he kept busy in fast-paced London, images of British Columbia haunted him and he wrote his first book, Silver: The Life of an Atlantic Salmon (1931) as well as part of Pool and Rapid (1932). He returned to BC at the end of the year and planned his third book, Panther (1934). He married Ann Elmore of Seattle after publishing Panther, and the couple settled on the banks of the Campbell River where they remained for over 40 years, raising three daughters and a son.
From the year of his return to British Columbia to 1976, the year of his death, Roderick Haig-Brown published twenty-three books (five more were published posthumously), two book chapters, wrote numerous articles and essays, and created several series of talks and historical dramas for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which allowed him to travel across Canada, and was a magistrate to the town of Campbell River from 1941 until 1974. He became a trustee of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, an advisor to the BC Wildlife Federation, a senior advisor to Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Flyfishers, and a member of Federal Fisheries Development Council and the International Pacific Salmon Commission. He was also Chancellor of University of Victoria from 1970 to 1973. As he grew older, these many responsibilities prevented him from devoting much time to writing. Though he still enjoyed his usual outdoor hobbies, he published very little between 1964 and 1974.
[edit] Bibliography
- Silver: The Life Story of an Atlantic Salmon (1931)
- Pool and Rapid (1932)
- Panther (1934)
- The Western Angler (1939)
- Retrun to the River (1941)
- Timber (1942)
- Starbuck Valley Winter (1943)
- A River Never Sleeps (1946)
- Saltwater Summer (1948)
- On the Highest Hill (1949)
- Measure of the Year (1950)
- Fisherman's Spring (1951)
- Fisherman's Winter (1954)
- Mounted Police Patrol (1954)
- Captain of the Discovery (1956)
- Fisherman's Summer (1959)
- The Farthest Shores (1960)
- The Living Land (1961)
- Fur and Gold (1962)
- The Whale People (1962)
- A Primer of Fly-Fishing (1964)
- Fisherman's Fall (1964)
- The Salmon (1974)
- Bright Waters, Bright Fish (1980)
- Alison's Fishing Birds (1980)
- Woods and River Tales (1980)
- The Master and His Fish (1981)
- Writings and Reflection (1982)
[edit] References
- Roderick Haig-Brown. “Alan Roderick Haig Brown.” Writings and Reflections. Ed. Valerie Haig-Brown. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982. 27-36.
- Roderick Haig-Brown. “Hardy’s Dorset.” Writings and Reflections. Ed. Valerie Haig-Brown. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982. 37-47.
- Robertson, Anthony Robertson . Above Tide: Reflections on Roderick Haig-Brown. Madeira Park, B.C.: Harbour, 1984.
