|
||||||||||||
  Story by Van Egan With Photography by Nick Didlick Roderick Langmere Haig-Brown, born in Dorset, England in 1908, came to live in Campbell River on Vancouver Island in 1934. It was not his first residence in Canada, for in 1927 he arrived in the lower Nimpkish Valley near the North end of Vancouver Island to work for the Wood & English Timber Co. as a timber cruiser and surveyor. A year later he struck out on his own as a trapper and commercial fisherman.
During two years at home in England he wrote his first two novels: Silver, the Life History of an Atlantic Salmon and Pool and Rapid, the story of a river and one of its pioneering families, based on his time with the Lansdowne family on the Nimpkish. While writing Pool and Rapid the young author was being increasingly drawn between the pervasive magnetism of the wild Nimpkish River and the glitter and excitement of English life. In the end Western Canada won and of 27 books he wrote in his lifetime, all but these two were written from his home on the banks of the Campbell River. Haig-Brown returned to the Nimpkish Valley in 1932, struggled to make a living through log salvaging and guiding sport fishermen, and engaged himself in the angling opportunities that found expression in such classic books as The Western Angler and A River Never Sleeps. He left the Nimpkish the following year, returning to Seattle and the lady he successfully courted, and in January 1934 married Ann Elmore. That year Roderick and Ann settled along the Campbell River, there to raise a family of four children and a variety of farm crops to sustain them all. And here Haig-Brown made an international name as a leading essayist and writer of fishing literature and an acclaimed reputation as a visionary conservationist. So great has been his influence that 25 years after his death in October 1976, today’s conservationists still draw on his wisdom in support of their arguments to preserve and perpetuate this continent's diminishing resources. For fishermen who have not yet been introduced to the writings of Haig-Brown, there is some envy from those who have, for they have a great discovery ahead of them. Though Haig-Brown is eminently rereadable and one can always find one’s self and one’s own experiences intertwined in those of this superbly gifted communicator, the initial reading of a Haig-Brown book is, like one’s first love or one’s first trout or salmon, an enchantment never to be forgotten. Since those two great books of the mid-1940’s, mentioned above, Haig-Brown has served his readership beautifully with a seasonal series: Fisherman’s Spring, Fisherman’s Winter, Fisherman’s Summer and Fisherman’s Fall, all which have been recently released in one volume under the title: The Seasons of a Fisherman. And all which will lead the reader/angler to a greater appreciation of the fish and its waters, and a deeper understanding of why fishing has such an enduring presence on those afflicted.
Knopf published the book under the title American Trout Fishing. Nor other sport or games have given to the world of literature as richly as has that of angling. Yet only a few authors on fishing have ever earned equal status in the belles lettres world of fine arts. In the past Twentieth Century, when more books on angling have been published than in the previous 400 years, Haig-Brown is in a select handful of writers who have achieved literary status. As Gingrich put it, “to the world of belles lettres Haig-Brown (was) fly fishing’s ambassador.” Footnote: |
||||||||||||
It was a tough two-year lifestyle for an aspiring writer and it is not surprising that he should return to England for a time to decide his future, whether to surround himself with the refined sociality of a settled England or the wild and ragged edges of a developing Canada.
Arnold Gingrich, the late editor and publisher of Esquire magazine, tells a story in his book, The Joys of Trout, that nicely fuses Haig-Brown the angler and Haig-Brown the writer. In an effort to persuade the New York publisher, Alfred Knopf, to publish a trade edition of an angling anthology titled The Gordon Garland, which had previously been privately printed, Gingrich read through a list of the contributors: A.J. McClane, Lee Wulff, Ernest Schwiebert, etc., names he was so proud of he was “practically strutting sitting down.” Knopf was visibly unimpressed, but looking over the list he said, “I’ve no doubt that to you fishers every last one of these people is a household name, but I’ve never heard of any of ‘em, except of course Haig-Brown.”
