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Addison, W.D.
Person · 1939-2017

William (Bill) David Addison was born April 27, 1939 to Peter Addison and Ottelyn (Robinson) Addison, the oldest of 3 children, in Toronto, Ontario.

His father, a forester, moved with the family to Port Arthur Ontario by the time Bill was 5 years old, where he spent his formative years. His mother Ottelyn inspired his love and knowledge of nature and his intense curiosity as she took Bill and his brothers exploring nature, canoeing, identifying flora and fauna. She in turn developed her love and knowledge of the natural world in Algonquin Park under the tutelage of her father, Mark Robinson, a Park Ranger.

The family moved to Richmond Hill in the early ‘50’s where teenage Bill developed his love of photography. He and his mother built a dark room in which they could develop their photos. Bill was particularly drawn to nature with its abundant wildlife and landscape opportunities. Like his father, he studied forestry at the University of Toronto, followed by a Masters’ degree in Fisheries in the mid 1960’s. It was at University that he met Wendy Livingston who he married in 1966.

Bill’s reading tastes and interests varied greatly, leading to him being conversant on almost any topic. The book ‘Dangerous River’ by R.M. Patterson made such a strong impression on him that he led Wendy on a honeymoon trip into the Nahanni River country where they spent a month traveling the river and its environs by foot and canoe in 1966 despite the fears of relatives that they would never return. He was always adventurous. The collection of fish for the Royal Ontario Museum and the search for lemmings helped finance the trip as did scuba diving for an engineering company. This trip was to be instrumental in many of Bill’s later endeavours.

In 1966, Bill started working with fisheries biology in Maple for ‘Lands and Forests’. Much to his delight, the unit moved north to Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) a year later. He was happy to have returned ‘home’. An article Bill wrote about the Nahanni trip appeared in Weekend Magazine that year as well. A few years later, Bill changed careers to join Wendy as a high school teacher which provided opportunities to camp and canoe together during the summers.

Bill promoted the Nahanni River area as natural place to create a park, and when this occurred in the early 1970’s, he proposed that old-timers in the area be interviewed to provide a history of the area while they were still able to do so. Due to his enthusiasm for the project along with his extensive interests and ability to connect to people, he was a natural choice. The proposal was accepted along with a request that he carry out those interviews. During this time, two daughters, Michelle and Kirsten were born, so the family stayed home while Bill travelled on his interviewing trips. He was always teased about having missed Kirsten’s birth because he was carrying out interviews at the time. Although the scope of the project was limited due to funding constraints, knowing that the interviewees were all aging, Bill continued the interviews after funding ran out, travelling from the Maritimes to California to the Northwest Territories. This was a task that he enjoyed thoroughly, and which resulted in a lifelong passion.

Bill returned to Nahanni River in 1978 and 1979, travelling the length of the river, but also carrying out many hikes in the surrounding areas. He loved exploring Canada which led to many car and canoe camping trips both locally and throughout the country with the family once the girls were old enough for this type of travel. Memorable trips to Dawson City, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, the Broken Islands and the Milk River provided a greater understanding of Canada for all.

After retirement in 1998, Bill had more time available to participate in his many interests. Winter and spring months often took Bill and Wendy on camping trips in the Southern US and west, particularly during rainy years in which flowers were present in the deserts or oceans were stormy and snowpack was high. Bill was a prodigious writer, and his ‘epistles’ and digital photos of our many travels in Canada and the US along with several international extended trips were greatly anticipated by the many friends and relatives who received them. His interesting talks and slideshows were greatly appreciated and very well received by a variety of organizations and friends. Retirement also allowed time to enjoy the growing family, which by 2013 included 2 sons-in-law and 4 grandchildren.

Bill’s variety of interests led him, along with a Thunder Bay friend, Greg, to the exploration of local geological formations which they were able to identify as ejecta from the Sudbury (Ontario) meteorite impact in the early 2000’s. This discovery led to work still being carried out on this discovery by geologists and mining companies. Bill and Greg produced several publications on this discovery and for this work they were awarded the Goldich Medal from the Institute on Lake Superior Geology. This interest led Bill and Wendy to a trip to South Africa to take part in a Geology Conference on meteorite impacts as well as a geology cruise to Antarctica. A large piece of ejecta from Thunder Bay now resides in a museum in South Africa.

As geologists expanded on the ejecta studies that Bill and Greg started, Bill returned to intensive work on the Nahanni ‘Old timers’ project, transcribing interviews that hadn’t been transcribed as part of the original project. During their trip to Alaska and NWT in 2017, Bill was still searching archives and talking to people associated with the Nahanni area. Sadly, Bill was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer soon after his return from this trip and died October 25, 2017.

Buckley, Frank
Person

Francis (Frank) Leo Buckley was born on November 9, 1893 in Seattle, Washington. In the summer of 1938, Frank and his wife Viola, daughter Patricia (Patsy) and son Harold (Timmy) moved from Peace River, Alberta to Yellowknife. Mr. Buckley made the journey by transporting two scows loaded with gasoline belonging to Peace River Airways, traveling down Peace River and Slave River, and finally crossing Great Slave Lake. During this trip the scows also brought up a cow and two horses (Prince and Pal), the first horses to arrive in Yellowknife. Between 1938-1940, Mr. Buckley worked hauling wood on land and freighting lumber across Great Slave Lake from the saw mill near Hay River owned by M. MacDonald and Bobbie Porritt. In 1942, Mr. Buckley returned with his family to his wife's hometown of Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Mr. Buckley continued to do occasional freighting work in the north until 1950.

Gordon, Peter
Person

Peter Lockhart Gordon and his brother, Hugh Donald Lockhart Gordon travelled down the Nahanni in the summer of 1961 by canoe. Hugh drowned while on the trip.

Lahser, Otto
Person

Otto Lahser was one of a party that traveled from Detroit Michigan to Athabasca (Alberta) and built the boat "Enterprise." From there, the group journeyed down the Athabasca and Slave Rivers to Great Slave Lake and then down the Mackenzie River to the Peel River. It was at the Peel River that the group sold the "Enterprise" and then split up. Some members attempted to travel south by dog sled while others crossed the Richardson Mountains to LaPerre's House and Fort Yukon.

Andreasen, Ole
Person

Ole Andreasen came to the North on a whaling ship that was possibly captained by his brother. He was a trader who operated the trading post at Shingle Point in the Richardson Islands in the early 1930s for T.C. Pederson. He also had a post at Point Atkinson (Nuvoraq) in the early 1920s. He traveled with Vilhjalmur Steffanson on several of Steffanson's expeditions in the Canadian Arctic and owned the ship the 'Gladiator'. He married Susanna, also known as Atugpik and had two sons, David and Jasper.

Dewar, Kenneth McIntyre
Person

In 1928, a prospecting expedition consisting of Kenneth Dewar, Harold Wilson, J.B. Muirhead and J. Thomson, set out by canoe and traveled from Great Slave Lake, to Chesterfield Inlet via the Hanbury and Thelon Rivers. Two of the expedition members kept journals and took photographs of the trip. Kenneth Dewar compiled stories and photographs from the two journals into a single journal. The journal includes Mr. Dewar's account of finding the remains of John Hornby, Edgar Christian and Harold Adlard. Portions of Mr. Dewar's journal were published in Canadian Geographic.

Lloyd, Edward
Person

Edward Lloyd was born in 1874 in Kenley England. He grew up at Bosherston and educated at Bedford. In 1897, he left a job in England to live in Canada. He travelled extensively across the country including a trip (ca. 1897-1899) from Edmonton, to Hay River via the Peace and Hay Rivers, down the Mackenzie River through communities such as Wrigley and Fort Good Hope to Fort McPherson, across the Yukon to Old Crow and on to Alaska. He eventually settled at Courtney, B.C. He was married and had at least one son. Edward Lloyd died in 1956.

Mathers, C. W.
Person

Charles Wesley Mathers was born in Ontario to Irish immigrant parents in 1868. In 1892, the photographers Boorne and May hired Mathers to work at their Calgary studio. Mathers purchased their Edmonton studio in 1893 and opened it under his own name. Mathers traveled extensively in western and northern Canada. In 1901, a trip with trader William Connors, took him along the Athabasca River north. He traveled to Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Wrigley, Hay River, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope and Fort McPherson, keeping a photographic record of his trip. The album "The Far North" was produced from these photographs and marketed by Mathers' Edmonton studio. Mathers died in 1950.