Hugh Aylmer Dempsey, (November 7, 1929 - May 24, 2022) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

historian, an author and the Chief Curator Emeritus of the

Glenbow Museum The Glenbow Museum is an art and history regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was established as a private non-profi ...

Calgary, Alberta Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

. Dempsey authored more than 20 books, focusing primarily on the history of people of the

Blackfoot Confederacy The Blackfoot Confederacy, ''Niitsitapi'' or ''Siksikaitsitapi'' (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or " Blackfoot-speaking real people"), is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Bla ...

. He received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

and was made an honorary chief of the Kainai Blackfoot in 1967.

George Melnyk George Roman Melnyk (born 1946) is a Canadian cultural historian. Melnyk is Professor Emeritus of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Manitoba, a Maste ...

''The Literary History of Alberta: From the end of the war to the end of the century''
University of Alberta, 1999 p112-113 For his contributions to the study of the Plains Indians, Dempsey was awarded membership in the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

in 1975."Hugh A. Dempsey, C.M., LL.D"
''Order of Canada'', Governor General of Canada, www.gg.ca, retrieved 2009-04-25

Career

Dempsey left school in 1947 after completing Grade 11. He worked as a journalist for the

Edmonton Bulletin The ''Edmonton Bulletin'' was a newspaper in Edmonton, Alberta, published from 1880 until January 20, 1951. It was founded by Edmonton pioneer Frank Oliver, a future Liberal politician and cabinet minister in the Canadian Government. Oliver co-f ...

newspaper from 1948 to 1951 and then, when the newspaper folded, became a publicity writer for the Alberta Government from 1951 to 1956., Archives Catalogue, Glenbow Museum, retrieved 2009-04-25 In 1956, Dempsey was vice-president of the Edmonton-based Historical Society of Alberta and associate editor of the Alberta Historical Review, when he moved to Calgary to become archivist of the recently established Glenbow Museum. From 1956 until 1967, he served as archivist, becoming curator/director from 1967 to 1991. On his retirement Dempsey was made Chief Curator Emeritus. Dempsey authored numerous articles and books, such as ''Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet'' (1973), ''The Gentle Persuader: A Biography of James Gladstone, Indian Senator'' (1986), and ''Red Crow: Warrior Chief'' (1978), which focus on the culture and history of the

First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

peoples of Alberta. Dempsey's writing benefited not only from his work as an archivist but also from his access to the Blackfoot community through his marriage. Dempsey is credited with combining the oral history of native peoples with scholarly records to produce historical writing with a broad popular appeal. Dempsey became editor of the Alberta Historical Review in 1958. From 1963 to 1967, Dempsey was also editor of the newsletter ''The Canadian Archivist'' which later became the journal of the Archives Section of the Canadian Historical Association. He also lectured on native studies and Alberta history at the University of Calgary.

Honors

Dempsey was the honorary secretary of the Indian Association of Alberta from 1959 to 1964 and was made an honorary chief of the

Kainai Nation The Kainai Nation (or , or Blood Tribe) ( bla, Káínaa) is a First Nations band government in southern Alberta, Canada, with a population of 12,800 members in 2015, up from 11,791 in December 2013. translates directly to 'many chief' (fro ...

in 1967. Dempsey was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Calgary on May 30, 1974, after he gave the convocation address. On October 15, 1975 Dempsey was invested as a Member of the

"for his contributions to the preservation of the cultural and development of interest in the history of the Plains Indians." In 1987, Dempsey was awarded the Certificate of Merit in Regional History by the

Canadian Historical Association The Canadian Historical Association (CHA; French ''Société historique du Canada'', SHC) is a Canadian organization founded in 1922 for the purposes of promoting historical research and scholarship. It is a bilingual, not-for-profit, charitable o ...

for his "distinguished career." On October 2, 2000, the Archives Society of Alberta paid tribute to Dempsey "for his lasting contributions" to the preservation of Alberta's heritage.In 2019, Dempsey received an honorary degree from the University of Lethbridge.

Personal life

Dempsey was born in Edgerton,

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

in 1929. His parents were English war bride Lily Louise Sharp and farmer (former Canadian soldier) Otto Lionel Dempsey. Forced off the land by the Depression, they moved to Edmonton when Hugh was five. In 1953 he married Pauline Gladstone, the daughter of Canadian Senator

James Gladstone James Gladstone ( bla, Akay-na-muka, script=Latn, italic=yes, lit=Many Guns; May 21, 1887 – September 4, 1971) was a Canadian politician who claimed to become the first Treaty Indian to be appointed to the Senate of Canada. Early life Ja ...

of the Kainai Blackfoot, with whom he had five children. In 1951 Dempsey began more than 40 years of correspondence and friendship with American ethnohistorian John Canfield Ewers when the two met while doing field research on the Blackfoot reservation in Montana. Dempsey passed away in Calgary, Alberta on May 24, 2022, at the age of 92.

Bibliography

Selected books

*''Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet'', (The Civilization of the American Indian Series, v. 122), Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. *''Red Crow, Warrior Chief'', Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980. *''Indian Tribes of Alberta'', Calgary: Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1979. *''History in their Blood : The Indian Portraits of Nicholas de Grandmaison'', Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1982. *(editor) ''The CPR West: The Iron Road and the Making of a Nation'', Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1984. *''Big Bear : The End of Freedom, Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1984. *''Gentle Persuader : A Biography of James Gladstone, Indian Senator'', Saskatoon : Western Producer Prairie Books, 1986. *''Bibliography of the Blackfoot'', (with Lindsay Moir), Native American bibliography series, no. 13. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989. *''The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories: Three Hundred years of Blackfoot History'', Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. *''Tom Three Persons: Legend of an Indian Cowboy'', Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Ltd, 1997. *''Charcoal's World: The True Story of a Canadian Indian's Last Stand'', Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 1998. *''Firewater: The Impact of the Whisky Trade on the Blackfoot Nation'', Calgary: Fifth House Publishers, 2002. *''The Vengeful Wife and Other Blackfoot Stories'', Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 2003. *''The People of the Buffalo. The Plains Indians of North America. Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers'', vol 1 & 2, co-editor with Colin F. Taylor, Wyk auf Foehr, Germany: Tatanka Press, 2003 (vol. 1), 2004 (vol, 2). (vol.1) 3-89510-102-8 (vol.2) *''Maskepetoon: Leader, Warrior, Peacemaker'', Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2010. *''The Great Blackfoot Treaties'', Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2015. *''Napi: The Trickster'', Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2018.

Selected articles and monographs

*''A Blackfoot Winter Count'', Calgary, Glenbow-Alberta Institute, 1965, reprinted 1970. OCLC 605474 *"The Calgary-Edmonton Trail", ''Alberta Historical Review'' 7, no. 4 (Autumn 1959). *"Long Lance, Catawba-Cherokee and adopted Blackfoot", in ''American Indian intellectuals'', Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society, St. Paul : West Pub. Co., 1978. *"One Hundred Years of Treaty Seven", in ''One Century Later: Western Canadian Reserve Indians since Treaty 7'', Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1977. *"History and Identification of Blood Bands." in ''Plains Indian Studies: A Collection of Essays in honor of John C. Ewers and Waldo R. Wedel'', Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982. *"Blackfoot Ghost Dance", Occasional paper, no. 3. Calgary, Alberta: Glenbow Museum, 1989. *''Tribal Honors: A History of the Kainai Chieftainship'', Calgary, AB, Canada : Kainai Chieftainship, 1997. *"Blood (Kainai)", ''Canadian Encyclopedia'', Toronto: Historical Foundation of Canada, 2005. *"Beginnings of Calgary: The Isaac S. Freeze Letters 1883–84." ''Alberta History'' --. 51. 1 (2003).

References

External links

Hugh A. Dempsey fonds
at Glenbow Museum Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Dempsey, Hugh A. 1929 births Living people Members of the Order of Canada University of Calgary faculty 20th-century Canadian historians Canadian male non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian historians