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James Herbert (Herb) Watson was born 5 December 1934 in Ontario. He studied Science at Waterloo College and Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. In 1960, he spent one year at the Kokoschka International Academy of Vision in Salzburg, Austria.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Herb Watson worked as an exhibition designer in a number of museum environments: the Vancouver Maritime Museum and Vancouver City Museum, 1966; the Vancouver Centennial Museum, 1969; the Maritime and City Museums, 1970-1977. In 1977, he took a one year visiting appointment at the Museum Of Anthropology (hereafter MOA). In 1978, he became Exhibit Designer at MOA.

While at MOA, Herb Watson designed over sixty exhibitions, ten of which traveled across Canada and many of which involved studen
t trainees. He regularly taught exhibit design to studen ts in a UBC introductory museum course and supervised the design and installation of annual studen t exhibitions. He was frequently invited to give lectures and workshops at other universities and museum associations.

From 1985-90, Herb Watson managed a contract to research design and install the South Pacific Pavilion at Expo '86. His role included representing eight South Seas nations and travelling to the South Pacific to acquire artifacts. Between 1988 and 1990, Herb Watson designed the west wing extension of MOA that would house the Koerner Ceramics Collection. Herb Watson retired from MOA 28 February 28 1991.

Mr. James Fyfe Smith was born April 1, 1869. His wife, nee Mary Gertrude Banamy was born August 24, 1873. The Fyfe Smiths immigrated to Canada from Australia in 1904. James Fyfe Smith became an importer of hardwood and set up his company, J. Fyfe Smith Co. Ltd. in Vancouver. The family traveled extensively between 1900-1932 to Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. During these numerous trips, the Fyfe Smiths and their daughter Florence accumulated large collection of ethnographic objects, including items from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, and Japan.

James Wheeler Davidson was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1872. In 1893 he took part in the Peary expedition to Greenland, attempting to find a route to the North Pole. In 1895 he traveled to Taiwan as a war correspondent for the New York Herald covering the transition to Japanese rule. That same year, he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun for aiding the Japanese army in the capture of the capital of Taipei, Formosa. Soon after he became a trader based in the town of Tamsui. During this time, Davidson became fluent in Chinese and Japanese. In 1897, President Cleveland appointed Davidson as the consular agent for the island of Formosa. He remained in this role for nine years and became very involved in the affairs of Formosa and wrote many monographs about the region. During this time he conducted the research for his work The Island of Formosa, Historical View from 1430 to 1900 (alternative title: The Island of Formosa, Past and Present), which was published in 1903. His work has been a frequently referenced resource for the English-speaking world, and still impacts the study of the history of Taiwan. After spending a year compiling a detailed survey of the territory adjacent to the Asian section of the Trans-Siberian Railway (extracts of which appeared in Century Magazine, April-June 1903), Davidson was appointed as a political consultant to Antung, Manchuria. Later he would also become consul at Antung, Manchuria, commercial attaché to the American legation in Peking, and a special agent of the Department of State. In 1905 Davidson was appointed by President Roosevelt to the position of consul general in Shanghai, also serving in Nanjing. Due to illness, Davidson returned to the US to recuperate in 1906. Once recovered, he emigrated to Calgary, in 1907 with his new wife Lillian.

In Calgary, Davidson became involved with the lumber industry. Davidson was very active in the Calgary community, and helped increase the standing of the city. He extended the Canadian Pacific Railway northeast and southeast of Calgary, and extended the Calgary based system of roads as far as Salt Lake City. Davidson expanded the Crown Lumber company into fifty-two branches with two hundred employees, and successfully invested in the Turner Valley Oil Field. He was influential in initiating the Calgary Mawson Report for proactive city planning, and helped start the Calgary Symphony.

Davidson joined the Calgary Rotary Club in 1914 and became a very invested and prominent member. Originally a “Loans Officer,” from 1919 – 1920 he was the Calgary Club President. From 1923 – 1924, he was the Zone 4 District Governor. In 1921 he was nominated as one of two Honorary Commissioners by the Canadian Advisory Committee to extend the Rotary Club into Australia and New Zealand. He was accompanied by future Canadian WWII Minister of Defense Layton Ralston. He became pivotal in the Rotary Extension program, acting as the envoy to the Mediterranean, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Australia when the Rotary Club wanted to expand their chapters internationally. Davidson spent a quarter of a million dollars of his own money to circumnavigate the globe with Lillian and their young daughter Marjory to achieve this goal. The trip lasted 32 months from 1928-1931. During this time, Davidson was responsible for founding 23 clubs in 12 different countries. Less than two years after their return, James Davidson passed away in 1933. He was immortalized in 1935 when a peak of the Rocky Mountains was named after him. Mt. Davidson is located nine kilometers north of the Lake Minnewanka marker mountain, Devil’s Head.

James “Jim” Albert Gibson was born on May 7, 1938 in Indiana. He studied anthropology at Indiana University, receiving a BA in 1960. In 1964, he graduated from the University of Washington with a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics, and in 1973 he received a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Hawaii, Hilo. Beginning in 1969, Gibson taught Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, retiring in 1996 as Associate Professor Emeritus. He died on February 23, 2009, in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Jack Lieber (1918-2015) fled Russia with his parents, coming to Canada at the age of six. His mother was the concert pianist Olga Lieber. Enlisting in the RCAF, he flew many missions into Europe and survived the crash of the Lancaster bomber in which he was navigator. After the war, he earned his B.A., Dip Ed. and M.A. at McGill, and worked as a teacher in the Montreal area for many years. The highlight of his teaching career was six years with CIDA at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, followed by a posting to Papua-New Guinea with UNESCO. When he retired in 1984, he and his wife Iris moved to Toronto.

Ingeborg (Inge) Ruus worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the UBC in 1975. Prior to completing her studies Ruus worked at MOA as a volunteer in the position of Registrar from 1948-1977. While completing her studies she became involved in an unofficial capacity with the MOA. In 1976 she was instrumental in mounting the Guatemala Highlands exhibit which focused on textiles from that region. In 1977 Ruus was hired by MOA as a Curatorial Assistant specializing in Ethnology. However, due to illness Ruus’s official tenure at MOA was short lived, and she left the museum in the latter part of 1977.

Hugh Campbell-Brown was a medical doctor in Vernon, B.C., whose father was a missionary doctor in China. The father of Campbell-Brown assembled a collection of coins that date from 255 B.C. to 1910, and the Museum of Anthropology acquired these coins from Hugh Campbell-Brown in the early 1980s.

The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was created by Royal Charter in 1670. For the most part of its history, the HBC was a fur trading business that played a significant role in the British colonization of North America.
During the second half of the 20th Century, the company gradually transformed into a department store chain.