immigrants. As a young boy, Ross Gibson passed his first years uneventfully enough. The tiny town gave out pretty quickly into deep country and there Ross learned the rudiments of bushcraft. When he was eleven or twelve, the family moved east to southwestern Ontario, where Ross Gibson grew into a loyal, straightforward, unsophisticated young man, not handsome exactlylivid skin and thick facial features perched like sausages on mashed beets put paid to thatbut pleasingly tall and as strong and as solid as a tree trunk. Even then, people who met him could seethat, while not all that bright, he was an honest kind of a fellow, with a certain bluff integrity.
The Gibsons did not stay long in Ontario. At the age of fourteen, Ross moved back to British Columbia with his family and it was here, while passing his free hours crashing through the nearest patch of birded forest with a sharp dog and a loaded rifle, that Ross began to think about what he might want to do with his life. Clearly he was not cut out for a desk job, but neither was he sufficiently unconventional to be able to set out on his own, as Robert Flaherty had. He needed something that would earn him a steady income and keep him out of doors.
His decision was deferred by the onset of the Second World War. Ross Gibson signed on for duty with the Canadian navy. The navy took him as far as South America and it was here that he found himself face to face for the first time with “natives,” Ross Gibson's word for anyone who was not white. The “natives” made a great impact on the young Gibson. He was struck by how cheerful they seemed, in spite of their piteous living conditions. Their smiles and nods and handshakes he took at face value. He assumed they were smiling simply because they were happy and, if they were happy in the dismal situations in which they found themselves, then it was because they were admirably simple. Though he would never have admitted it to himself, the simplicity Ross Gibson thought he saw in “natives” chimed very much with his own. In admiring them, he was cheering on some aspect of himself.
By the time the war ended, Gibson knew what he wanted to be. He signed on to the Hudson Bay Company as a fur trader and post manager and was assigned initially to a trading post at Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, then to Fort St. James in the heart of beaver country. His job was to negotiate with the local trappers, most of them Indian, who brought muskrat, wolverine, wolf, rabbit and, of course, beaver pelts to the trading post. Once the furs had been inspected and a price agreed, it was Gibson's job to bundle them up, label each bundle and sort them for dispatch to the greatfur depots in Winnipeg and Montreal. The work was lonely and modestly paid, but Gibson did not mind all that. There was one problem with the job, however; it was a big one, and it would not go away. It turned out that Ross Gibson was allergic to fur. The stacked bales of uncured pelts in the Bay storeroom left him so swollen-eyed and sniffly his life became impossible. Sensing the limits of his fur-trading career, Gibson eventually felt he had no choice but to quit the Bay and, shortly after, he applied to take the entrance examinations for the British Columbia Police. The force appealed to his blokeish sense of loyalty, as well as his fondness for authority. The B.C. Police accepted him and he entered the service as a constable. Two years later, when the regional force was taken over by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ross Gibson put in for an Arctic attachment and in 1952 he was dispatched on a two-year posting to Inukjuak.
By that time, Inukjuak had seen more two-year men than there were ticks in a clock. Twenty-four months of frostbitten toes, seal-head stews and pitch-black winter days were enough to see off most, and those who did stay longer were usually on the run from something in the south, or else so permanently soused as to have lost all sense of time. Ross
The Gibsons did not stay long in Ontario. At the age of fourteen, Ross moved back to British Columbia with his family and it was here, while passing his free hours crashing through the nearest patch of birded forest with a sharp dog and a loaded rifle, that Ross began to think about what he might want to do with his life. Clearly he was not cut out for a desk job, but neither was he sufficiently unconventional to be able to set out on his own, as Robert Flaherty had. He needed something that would earn him a steady income and keep him out of doors.
His decision was deferred by the onset of the Second World War. Ross Gibson signed on for duty with the Canadian navy. The navy took him as far as South America and it was here that he found himself face to face for the first time with “natives,” Ross Gibson's word for anyone who was not white. The “natives” made a great impact on the young Gibson. He was struck by how cheerful they seemed, in spite of their piteous living conditions. Their smiles and nods and handshakes he took at face value. He assumed they were smiling simply because they were happy and, if they were happy in the dismal situations in which they found themselves, then it was because they were admirably simple. Though he would never have admitted it to himself, the simplicity Ross Gibson thought he saw in “natives” chimed very much with his own. In admiring them, he was cheering on some aspect of himself.
By the time the war ended, Gibson knew what he wanted to be. He signed on to the Hudson Bay Company as a fur trader and post manager and was assigned initially to a trading post at Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, then to Fort St. James in the heart of beaver country. His job was to negotiate with the local trappers, most of them Indian, who brought muskrat, wolverine, wolf, rabbit and, of course, beaver pelts to the trading post. Once the furs had been inspected and a price agreed, it was Gibson's job to bundle them up, label each bundle and sort them for dispatch to the greatfur depots in Winnipeg and Montreal. The work was lonely and modestly paid, but Gibson did not mind all that. There was one problem with the job, however; it was a big one, and it would not go away. It turned out that Ross Gibson was allergic to fur. The stacked bales of uncured pelts in the Bay storeroom left him so swollen-eyed and sniffly his life became impossible. Sensing the limits of his fur-trading career, Gibson eventually felt he had no choice but to quit the Bay and, shortly after, he applied to take the entrance examinations for the British Columbia Police. The force appealed to his blokeish sense of loyalty, as well as his fondness for authority. The B.C. Police accepted him and he entered the service as a constable. Two years later, when the regional force was taken over by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ross Gibson put in for an Arctic attachment and in 1952 he was dispatched on a two-year posting to Inukjuak.
By that time, Inukjuak had seen more two-year men than there were ticks in a clock. Twenty-four months of frostbitten toes, seal-head stews and pitch-black winter days were enough to see off most, and those who did stay longer were usually on the run from something in the south, or else so permanently soused as to have lost all sense of time. Ross
Similar Books
