Volume 14    Number 10    25 July 1984

A Profile of John Murray Gibbon

by Dave Jones
 
D'Alton C. Coleman, President of the C.P.R. from 1942 to 1947, in a tribute to John Murray Gibbon, described him as a very unusual type of publicity man for a large corporation to employ, "being much closer to the shrinking-violet type than to the check-suited, cigar-smoking gentleman sometimes associated with publicity".
 
At any rate, the man who the Stoney Indians knew as Chief Man-of-Many-Sides was certainly one of diverse talents and accomplishments.
 
Gibbon was born in Udewelle, Ceylon, in 1875, the son of a tea planter. An imaginative boy, he had passing ambitions to be a cowboy, locomotive engineer, ringmaster in a circus, or the proprietor of a chain of candy stores.
 
These dreams dissolved, however, in the light of being sent off to Aberdeen, Scotland, to be formally educated, eventually graduating from Oxford, as well as studying in France and Germany.
 
Editor
 
After graduation Gibbon joined the staff of the "Black & White", a well known publication of which he became editor.
 
His first association with Canadian Pacific was in 1907 when he was hired on as an advertising agent in the London office. As the company was cooperating with the Liberal government in an active campaign to promote immigration to Canada, it came as no surprise that one of Gibbon's first assignments was to escort a group of British newspaper editors on a Canadian tour of inspection, together with George Ham, the company's Montreal publicity agent.
 
This trip led him to realize that the Canadian Pacific was not merely a railway, but an organization dedicated to building a new nation.
 
With Colonel Ham's retirement in 1913, Lord Shaughnessy, then president, offered him the position of General Publicity Agent in Montreal.
 
Trans-Siberian
 
Gibbon accepted on the condition that he be allowed to come to Canada via Russia and the Trans-Siberian Railway, which he did, but he spent so much time in Japan that Shaughnessy cabled asking him if he really intended to come.
 
It was in this position, which he held until his retirement in 1945, that he realized his talents as author, historian, musician, artist, and organizer extraordinaire.
 
Among his many literary achievements were the publishing of five novels:   "Hearts & Faces, Drums Afar, Eyes of a Gypsy, Pagan Love, and The Conquering Hero".
 
His work on Canadian folksongs, entitled "Canadian Folksongs, Old & New", started a vogue for ethnic verse which led to the company's sponsoring of several Folksong and Handicraft festivals at its major hotels during the 1920s.
 
French-Canadian music was featured at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, sea music at the Empress in Victoria and the Hotel Vancouver, English music at the Royal York in Toronto, Scottish music at the Banff Springs, while the new Canadians of the West also got their festivals at Winnipeg, Regina, and Calgary.
 
Gibbon's love of the Canadian Rockies inspired him to establish two societies, the Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies and the Sky Line Trail Hikers of the Canadian Rockies, in 1924 and 1933 respectively. He was also the founder and first president of the Canadian Authors' Association.
 
In 1938, he put together a series of ten radio broadcasts known as "Canadian Mosaic" and when they were published in book form, he was honored with the Governor-General's award.
 
Steel of Empire
 
Throughout his career, he remained a man of extreme shyness, leading one reviewer to describe him as "the most extraordinary example of reticence and male modesty to be found, perhaps, on the North American continent".
 
As for his affection for Canadian Pacific, Gibbon said:  "I have been thrice fortunate in my connection with a great broad-minded corporation which has always been alive to the romantic and delicate side of life".
 
Reflecting this belief, he penned a lengthy romantic history of the Canadian Pacific and its connections from the Orient to Europe, entitled "Steel of Empire".
 
John Murray Gibbon died in 1952, after a short illness, and was buried in a small cemetery in Banff amongst the mountains that he loved so much.
 
His friends from the "Trail Riders" installed a bronze plaque at his gravesite designed by Charles A. Beil of Banff, a noted Canadian sculptor and artist and longtime friend of Gibbon.
 
His name is commemorated in Gibbon Pass which lies between Shadow Lake and the Twin Lakes, below Ball and Storm mountains in the valley of the Bow River, midway between Banff and Lake Louise.
 
The pass was actually discovered by Gibbon while he was planning a route to be ridden by the Trail Riders.