Gordon Gibson, Sr.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gordon Gibson Sr was born at Gold Bottom Creek near Dawson City, Yukon in 1904. In the autumn 1973 edition of Arctic in Colour, a Government of the NWT publication, he told reporter Val Wake that his father was working a small mining claim while his mother was the camp cook. The claim failed and according to Gordon he and his brother Clarke were taken out of the Yukon in an orange crate. and ended up with a 132 foot pleasure boat called the Norsal which Gordon re-named the Maui Lu (after his first wife, Louise) and sailed it to his resort on Maui.* Gordon Gibson told Wake that the Gibson brothers built a $4,000,000 sawmill business starting at Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. They had more than 40 boats working the Inside Passage including the five masted 2,000 ton bald headed schooner, the Malahat. The Gibson family also owned a radio station in North Vancouver and a whaling station at Coal Harbour. In 1967 Gordon Gibson was appointed a member of the Northwest Territories Council. This was when Wake, who was a reporter with CBC News, first met Gordon Gibson. During Gibson's term as an appointed councillor Wake was the guest of Gordon Gibson at his Maui-Lu resort. At Maui Lu Wake found a totem pole which Gordon Gibson had arranged to fly out from Nootka Sound to Maui. At its base was an inscription written in concrete that claimed that it was the first totem pole to fly the Pacific. Gordon Gibson, Sr. was a politician in British Columbia, Canada. He was a prominent business leader, and a BC Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the 1950s. He was one of four MLAs that managed to get elected in the June 9, 1953 election when the Liberals received 23.36% of the vote. In the Lillooet riding, Gibson received 27.63% on the first count (in a preferential ballot) but on the third and final count edged out CCF rival Gordon Dowding with 51.93%.

Gibson was a millionaire timber baron whose nickname was "Bull of the Woods" due to his loud lumberjack's voice. He was dismissed as a rough, hard-drinking logger who had made it rich, but was loved by many small loggers as being one of the only people to be interested in them over the interests of big business.

In the 1920s, he and his brothers ran the Gibson Lumber and Shingle Company. During the depression, they were active around Vancouver Island, Vancouver and Seattle. The story of these early days is told in the book "Bull of the Woods."

Later in life he married Ms. Gertrude Schneider and together they ran a hotel on Maui with a restaurant that was very popular.

Gordon Gibson died of lung cancer in 1986.

His son, Gordon Gibson, Jr. led the provincial Liberals in the 1970s.

• For an hilarious account of this voyage, and the rest of Gordon's amazing life, read a copy of "The Bull of the Woods" by Gordon Gibson, with Carol Renison.