Roderick Langmere Haig-Brown (1908-1976)

Roderick Langmere Haig-Brown was a prolific author and ardent conservationist. His many publications on outdoor life, including fly-fishing, convey a deep understanding of the complex interdependent relationship between humanity and nature. With his evocative descriptions and a lyrical, unassuming style, Haig-Brown eloquently described the land, rivers, wildlife, and associated human experiences he encountered on Vancouver Island. His fiction and non-fiction works continue to hold broad appeal today. Haig-Brown was also an early and outspoken conservationist. In the mid-20^th century when British Columbia was beginning rapid resource exploitation, Haig-Brown advocated for lands, rivers, and community.

Haig-Brown was born in 1908 in England, where at a young age he learned to hunt and fish. In 1926, the youthful Haig-Brown decided to take a few years to see the world and travelled to the United States where he had family connections in Seattle. His first job was with the Wood-English Logging Company, where he worked first as a log scaler and then a surveyor. In 1927, he moved north to Vancouver Island where he lived and worked in the woods around the Nimpkish River. Here, he began to focus on becoming a writer. After two years he returned to England, where he wrote the children’s book Silver: The Life of an Atlantic Salmon (1931), but in late 1931, Haig-Brown came to the realization that he belonged in British Columbia, and returned to Vancouver Island. He and his wife, Ann, and their four children lived near Campbell River on Vancouver Island at a home called “Above Tide.” For the rest of his life, Haig-Brown made a living there by logging, trapping, fishing, guiding, but mostly by writing fiction and non-fiction for children and adults.

Haig-Brown’s best writing is considered to be in the genre of non-fiction. Between 1946 and 1964, he wrote the fishing books for which he is arguably best known today, including A River Never Sleeps (1946), Fisherman’s Spring (1951), Fisherman’s Winter (1954), Fisherman’s Summer (1959), and Fisherman’s Fall (1964). His writings found an audience beyond sport enthusiasts, making him arguably the province’s best known writer in the 1950s and 1960s. His interest in the natural world and humanity’s place in it expanded beyond his writing as he took an active role in the public sphere as a conservationist. He served on many councils and organizations, participated in resource conferences at the national level, and did numerous speaking engagements on the subject of conservation and resource use. Haig-Brown also believed in public service to the community. Beginning around 1940, he served as a magistrate and then family court judge for the Campbell River District, work which was the subject of a 1953 National Film Board documentary called Country Magistrate. Haig-Brown died at his home on 19 October 1976.

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