Calgary Herald, pg. 21
October 23, 1962
Norman K. Luxton, the "Mr. Banff" who was almost a living legend for his exploits, died today. He would have been 86 on Nov. 2.
He first saw Calgary in 1895, beginning a life of adventure that took him to the South Seas in a dugout canoe and finally to Banff and the Alberta Indian country he came to love.
He has been described as knowing as much or more about Canadian Indians that any other man.
A pioneer newspaper man among his other accomplishments, he was born in Winnipeg (then Fort Garry) in 1876. His father was the founder of the Manitoba Free Press.
He was associated with The Herald during the last 10 years of the last century, starting as a bill collectors, then writing and editing news.
In 1901, working for the Vancouver news Advertiser, he conceived the promotion idea of financing a trip to the South Seas in a 38-foot dugout canoe.
He went on the trip with a sea captain John Claus Voss, but left the sailor, after 150 days a sea, at Samoa.
Returning to Banff, he built the King Edward Hotel and was the first hotel man to stay open the year round.
He revived the old Crag and Canyon weekly newspaper and operated it until 1951.
He founded the Luxton Museum and helped organize the Banff Advisory Council and the old Bnaff Board of Trade.
He once bought a herd of buffalo - sigh unseen - and is credited with helping to save the animals from extinction.
He was one of the most popular and highly respected white men to brought into the Stoney Indian Tribe and recalled how he once saved a group of Indians from influenza by dousing them with whiskey and aspirin tablets.
He was one of the organizer of both the Banff Indian Days and the now discontinued Winter Carnival. He is survived by his widow, Georgia, whom he married in 1903. She was the daughter of Dave McDougall, an Indian trader from the fame family as the pioneer missionary, Rev. George McDougall.
Also surviving is one daughter, Eleanor, in the Calgary General Hospital; a brother George of Minneapolis; and two sisters, Mrs. Ed Hosking and Mrs. Fred Foster, also of Minneapolis.
**************
Calgary Albertan, October 30, 1962
RURAL ROUND UP by Tom Primrose
The death last week of Norman Luxton of Banff was the breaking of another link with the pioneer past of Western Canada. Norman belonged to generation of strong, capable, individualistic men who rejoiced as much in the challenge of battle as the victory itself.
In his life he played many roles, naturalist, hunter, sailor, explorer, newspaperman and the best public relations man Banff National Park ever had or ever will have. He made the name of the famous park known to the greater extent than any other one person. He had that particular something in his nature, like Tom Wilson, Bobby Campbell, Jimmie Simpson and Jim Brewster, also for Banff, which lends personality to an area which would otherwise be nothing more than a very scenic national tourist attraction. Norman Luxton and the school to which he belonged gave Banff a personality unique in the parks in western North America.
I had the privilege and great benefit of spending many hours in the company of Norman Luxton, mostly in the office of his Trading Post at Banff. He told me many of his experience as a hunter, newspaperman and resident of Banff. Banff will never be the same to me again, now that Norman is not there.
I took many notes of what he told me. One story in particular which he told me I was careful to copy down and still have the notes which will make a good story one day. It is the story of his father' founding of the Manitoba Free Press, now the Winnipeg Free Press, and his paring with the publication. Norman told me that he did not think he had told another six persons for the complete "Free Press" story. It was the greatest tribute he ever gave me - to include me in that little circle to which he would tell a story, strange and wonderful of the strange course of journalism in early Western Canada.
There were many other stories of a personal nature which he told me, some of which I took notes about. Most of the time I sat in the big conformable chair in his office smoking one of the fine cigars he always gave me, and listening to the wonderful experiences and person he had known.
Norman was a great hunter in his day. He once remarked he felt sure he had shot more birds and big gave than an other single person in Canada. "If I had it to do again I don't think I could. Animal life has become a good deal more precious to me as I've grown older. but I have this consolation - no many ever wasted less of the gave he shot than I did. The meat, hide, horn, bones and almost everything was used, nothing that was of any possible use was wasted," he said.
Norman's birds and animal heads, skins and in fact entire bodies of animals were mounted and sold almost everywhere in North America and Europe. He told me once one of the buildings he built on Banff Avenue was paid for entirely from antelope heads and horns, mounted and sold mostly in the eastern United States.
In the many enterprises he took part in Norman Luxton was an astute and determined businessman. Because of his ability and agility in the business world he made some enemies. It never worried Norman because he looked on it as part of the game and believed the man who does not make a few enemies makes even fewer friends. And friends he had by the score!
More than one hard-pressed young fellow he staked through lean winters and they repaid him in cash when they had it and friendship and admiration for the rest of their lives. There was the odd one, but not many, who failed to pay back the grubstakes Norman provided. The one who repaid were numerous enough that Norman never lost his optimism about human nature or his keen sense of humor.
Physically, Norman Luxton was what the old timers called "a skookum man." He was physically tough and resilient. He had to be, else he could not have come through the ordeal of the long ocean journey across the Pacific in the doughnut canoe, the old Tillicum. It took plain, old-fashioned gut to do that and many of the other things Norman did on the water and along bush trails. And some of the things he did during his early newspaper career were just as clever and courageous as anything Bob Edwards of the Eye Opener ever did. But Norman only talked about such things, years after they happened and to intimate friends.
October 23, 1962
Norman K. Luxton, the "Mr. Banff" who was almost a living legend for his exploits, died today. He would have been 86 on Nov. 2.
He first saw Calgary in 1895, beginning a life of adventure that took him to the South Seas in a dugout canoe and finally to Banff and the Alberta Indian country he came to love.
He has been described as knowing as much or more about Canadian Indians that any other man.
A pioneer newspaper man among his other accomplishments, he was born in Winnipeg (then Fort Garry) in 1876. His father was the founder of the Manitoba Free Press.
He was associated with The Herald during the last 10 years of the last century, starting as a bill collectors, then writing and editing news.
In 1901, working for the Vancouver news Advertiser, he conceived the promotion idea of financing a trip to the South Seas in a 38-foot dugout canoe.
He went on the trip with a sea captain John Claus Voss, but left the sailor, after 150 days a sea, at Samoa.
Returning to Banff, he built the King Edward Hotel and was the first hotel man to stay open the year round.
He revived the old Crag and Canyon weekly newspaper and operated it until 1951.
He founded the Luxton Museum and helped organize the Banff Advisory Council and the old Bnaff Board of Trade.
He once bought a herd of buffalo - sigh unseen - and is credited with helping to save the animals from extinction.
He was one of the most popular and highly respected white men to brought into the Stoney Indian Tribe and recalled how he once saved a group of Indians from influenza by dousing them with whiskey and aspirin tablets.
He was one of the organizer of both the Banff Indian Days and the now discontinued Winter Carnival. He is survived by his widow, Georgia, whom he married in 1903. She was the daughter of Dave McDougall, an Indian trader from the fame family as the pioneer missionary, Rev. George McDougall.
Also surviving is one daughter, Eleanor, in the Calgary General Hospital; a brother George of Minneapolis; and two sisters, Mrs. Ed Hosking and Mrs. Fred Foster, also of Minneapolis.
**************
Calgary Albertan, October 30, 1962
RURAL ROUND UP by Tom Primrose
The death last week of Norman Luxton of Banff was the breaking of another link with the pioneer past of Western Canada. Norman belonged to generation of strong, capable, individualistic men who rejoiced as much in the challenge of battle as the victory itself.
In his life he played many roles, naturalist, hunter, sailor, explorer, newspaperman and the best public relations man Banff National Park ever had or ever will have. He made the name of the famous park known to the greater extent than any other one person. He had that particular something in his nature, like Tom Wilson, Bobby Campbell, Jimmie Simpson and Jim Brewster, also for Banff, which lends personality to an area which would otherwise be nothing more than a very scenic national tourist attraction. Norman Luxton and the school to which he belonged gave Banff a personality unique in the parks in western North America.
I had the privilege and great benefit of spending many hours in the company of Norman Luxton, mostly in the office of his Trading Post at Banff. He told me many of his experience as a hunter, newspaperman and resident of Banff. Banff will never be the same to me again, now that Norman is not there.
I took many notes of what he told me. One story in particular which he told me I was careful to copy down and still have the notes which will make a good story one day. It is the story of his father' founding of the Manitoba Free Press, now the Winnipeg Free Press, and his paring with the publication. Norman told me that he did not think he had told another six persons for the complete "Free Press" story. It was the greatest tribute he ever gave me - to include me in that little circle to which he would tell a story, strange and wonderful of the strange course of journalism in early Western Canada.
There were many other stories of a personal nature which he told me, some of which I took notes about. Most of the time I sat in the big conformable chair in his office smoking one of the fine cigars he always gave me, and listening to the wonderful experiences and person he had known.
Norman was a great hunter in his day. He once remarked he felt sure he had shot more birds and big gave than an other single person in Canada. "If I had it to do again I don't think I could. Animal life has become a good deal more precious to me as I've grown older. but I have this consolation - no many ever wasted less of the gave he shot than I did. The meat, hide, horn, bones and almost everything was used, nothing that was of any possible use was wasted," he said.
Norman's birds and animal heads, skins and in fact entire bodies of animals were mounted and sold almost everywhere in North America and Europe. He told me once one of the buildings he built on Banff Avenue was paid for entirely from antelope heads and horns, mounted and sold mostly in the eastern United States.
In the many enterprises he took part in Norman Luxton was an astute and determined businessman. Because of his ability and agility in the business world he made some enemies. It never worried Norman because he looked on it as part of the game and believed the man who does not make a few enemies makes even fewer friends. And friends he had by the score!
More than one hard-pressed young fellow he staked through lean winters and they repaid him in cash when they had it and friendship and admiration for the rest of their lives. There was the odd one, but not many, who failed to pay back the grubstakes Norman provided. The one who repaid were numerous enough that Norman never lost his optimism about human nature or his keen sense of humor.
Physically, Norman Luxton was what the old timers called "a skookum man." He was physically tough and resilient. He had to be, else he could not have come through the ordeal of the long ocean journey across the Pacific in the doughnut canoe, the old Tillicum. It took plain, old-fashioned gut to do that and many of the other things Norman did on the water and along bush trails. And some of the things he did during his early newspaper career were just as clever and courageous as anything Bob Edwards of the Eye Opener ever did. But Norman only talked about such things, years after they happened and to intimate friends.
Calgary Herald, pg. 21
October 23, 1962
Norman K. Luxton, the "Mr. Banff" who was almost a living legend for his exploits, died today. He would have been 86 on Nov. 2.
He first saw Calgary in 1895, beginning a life of adventure that took him to the South Seas in a dugout canoe and finally to Banff and the Alberta Indian country he came to love.
He has been described as knowing as much or more about Canadian Indians that any other man.
A pioneer newspaper man among his other accomplishments, he was born in Winnipeg (then Fort Garry) in 1876. His father was the founder of the Manitoba Free Press.
He was associated with The Herald during the last 10 years of the last century, starting as a bill collectors, then writing and editing news.
In 1901, working for the Vancouver news Advertiser, he conceived the promotion idea of financing a trip to the South Seas in a 38-foot dugout canoe.
He went on the trip with a sea captain John Claus Voss, but left the sailor, after 150 days a sea, at Samoa.
Returning to Banff, he built the King Edward Hotel and was the first hotel man to stay open the year round.
He revived the old Crag and Canyon weekly newspaper and operated it until 1951.
He founded the Luxton Museum and helped organize the Banff Advisory Council and the old Bnaff Board of Trade.
He once bought a herd of buffalo - sigh unseen - and is credited with helping to save the animals from extinction.
He was one of the most popular and highly respected white men to brought into the Stoney Indian Tribe and recalled how he once saved a group of Indians from influenza by dousing them with whiskey and aspirin tablets.
He was one of the organizer of both the Banff Indian Days and the now discontinued Winter Carnival. He is survived by his widow, Georgia, whom he married in 1903. She was the daughter of Dave McDougall, an Indian trader from the fame family as the pioneer missionary, Rev. George McDougall.
Also surviving is one daughter, Eleanor, in the Calgary General Hospital; a brother George of Minneapolis; and two sisters, Mrs. Ed Hosking and Mrs. Fred Foster, also of Minneapolis.
**************
Calgary Albertan, October 30, 1962
RURAL ROUND UP by Tom Primrose
The death last week of Norman Luxton of Banff was the breaking of another link with the pioneer past of Western Canada. Norman belonged to generation of strong, capable, individualistic men who rejoiced as much in the challenge of battle as the victory itself.
In his life he played many roles, naturalist, hunter, sailor, explorer, newspaperman and the best public relations man Banff National Park ever had or ever will have. He made the name of the famous park known to the greater extent than any other one person. He had that particular something in his nature, like Tom Wilson, Bobby Campbell, Jimmie Simpson and Jim Brewster, also for Banff, which lends personality to an area which would otherwise be nothing more than a very scenic national tourist attraction. Norman Luxton and the school to which he belonged gave Banff a personality unique in the parks in western North America.
I had the privilege and great benefit of spending many hours in the company of Norman Luxton, mostly in the office of his Trading Post at Banff. He told me many of his experience as a hunter, newspaperman and resident of Banff. Banff will never be the same to me again, now that Norman is not there.
I took many notes of what he told me. One story in particular which he told me I was careful to copy down and still have the notes which will make a good story one day. It is the story of his father' founding of the Manitoba Free Press, now the Winnipeg Free Press, and his paring with the publication. Norman told me that he did not think he had told another six persons for the complete "Free Press" story. It was the greatest tribute he ever gave me - to include me in that little circle to which he would tell a story, strange and wonderful of the strange course of journalism in early Western Canada.
There were many other stories of a personal nature which he told me, some of which I took notes about. Most of the time I sat in the big conformable chair in his office smoking one of the fine cigars he always gave me, and listening to the wonderful experiences and person he had known.
Norman was a great hunter in his day. He once remarked he felt sure he had shot more birds and big gave than an other single person in Canada. "If I had it to do again I don't think I could. Animal life has become a good deal more precious to me as I've grown older. but I have this consolation - no many ever wasted less of the gave he shot than I did. The meat, hide, horn, bones and almost everything was used, nothing that was of any possible use was wasted," he said.
Norman's birds and animal heads, skins and in fact entire bodies of animals were mounted and sold almost everywhere in North America and Europe. He told me once one of the buildings he built on Banff Avenue was paid for entirely from antelope heads and horns, mounted and sold mostly in the eastern United States.
In the many enterprises he took part in Norman Luxton was an astute and determined businessman. Because of his ability and agility in the business world he made some enemies. It never worried Norman because he looked on it as part of the game and believed the man who does not make a few enemies makes even fewer friends. And friends he had by the score!
More than one hard-pressed young fellow he staked through lean winters and they repaid him in cash when they had it and friendship and admiration for the rest of their lives. There was the odd one, but not many, who failed to pay back the grubstakes Norman provided. The one who repaid were numerous enough that Norman never lost his optimism about human nature or his keen sense of humor.
Physically, Norman Luxton was what the old timers called "a skookum man." He was physically tough and resilient. He had to be, else he could not have come through the ordeal of the long ocean journey across the Pacific in the doughnut canoe, the old Tillicum. It took plain, old-fashioned gut to do that and many of the other things Norman did on the water and along bush trails. And some of the things he did during his early newspaper career were just as clever and courageous as anything Bob Edwards of the Eye Opener ever did. But Norman only talked about such things, years after they happened and to intimate friends.
October 23, 1962
Norman K. Luxton, the "Mr. Banff" who was almost a living legend for his exploits, died today. He would have been 86 on Nov. 2.
He first saw Calgary in 1895, beginning a life of adventure that took him to the South Seas in a dugout canoe and finally to Banff and the Alberta Indian country he came to love.
He has been described as knowing as much or more about Canadian Indians that any other man.
A pioneer newspaper man among his other accomplishments, he was born in Winnipeg (then Fort Garry) in 1876. His father was the founder of the Manitoba Free Press.
He was associated with The Herald during the last 10 years of the last century, starting as a bill collectors, then writing and editing news.
In 1901, working for the Vancouver news Advertiser, he conceived the promotion idea of financing a trip to the South Seas in a 38-foot dugout canoe.
He went on the trip with a sea captain John Claus Voss, but left the sailor, after 150 days a sea, at Samoa.
Returning to Banff, he built the King Edward Hotel and was the first hotel man to stay open the year round.
He revived the old Crag and Canyon weekly newspaper and operated it until 1951.
He founded the Luxton Museum and helped organize the Banff Advisory Council and the old Bnaff Board of Trade.
He once bought a herd of buffalo - sigh unseen - and is credited with helping to save the animals from extinction.
He was one of the most popular and highly respected white men to brought into the Stoney Indian Tribe and recalled how he once saved a group of Indians from influenza by dousing them with whiskey and aspirin tablets.
He was one of the organizer of both the Banff Indian Days and the now discontinued Winter Carnival. He is survived by his widow, Georgia, whom he married in 1903. She was the daughter of Dave McDougall, an Indian trader from the fame family as the pioneer missionary, Rev. George McDougall.
Also surviving is one daughter, Eleanor, in the Calgary General Hospital; a brother George of Minneapolis; and two sisters, Mrs. Ed Hosking and Mrs. Fred Foster, also of Minneapolis.
**************
Calgary Albertan, October 30, 1962
RURAL ROUND UP by Tom Primrose
The death last week of Norman Luxton of Banff was the breaking of another link with the pioneer past of Western Canada. Norman belonged to generation of strong, capable, individualistic men who rejoiced as much in the challenge of battle as the victory itself.
In his life he played many roles, naturalist, hunter, sailor, explorer, newspaperman and the best public relations man Banff National Park ever had or ever will have. He made the name of the famous park known to the greater extent than any other one person. He had that particular something in his nature, like Tom Wilson, Bobby Campbell, Jimmie Simpson and Jim Brewster, also for Banff, which lends personality to an area which would otherwise be nothing more than a very scenic national tourist attraction. Norman Luxton and the school to which he belonged gave Banff a personality unique in the parks in western North America.
I had the privilege and great benefit of spending many hours in the company of Norman Luxton, mostly in the office of his Trading Post at Banff. He told me many of his experience as a hunter, newspaperman and resident of Banff. Banff will never be the same to me again, now that Norman is not there.
I took many notes of what he told me. One story in particular which he told me I was careful to copy down and still have the notes which will make a good story one day. It is the story of his father' founding of the Manitoba Free Press, now the Winnipeg Free Press, and his paring with the publication. Norman told me that he did not think he had told another six persons for the complete "Free Press" story. It was the greatest tribute he ever gave me - to include me in that little circle to which he would tell a story, strange and wonderful of the strange course of journalism in early Western Canada.
There were many other stories of a personal nature which he told me, some of which I took notes about. Most of the time I sat in the big conformable chair in his office smoking one of the fine cigars he always gave me, and listening to the wonderful experiences and person he had known.
Norman was a great hunter in his day. He once remarked he felt sure he had shot more birds and big gave than an other single person in Canada. "If I had it to do again I don't think I could. Animal life has become a good deal more precious to me as I've grown older. but I have this consolation - no many ever wasted less of the gave he shot than I did. The meat, hide, horn, bones and almost everything was used, nothing that was of any possible use was wasted," he said.
Norman's birds and animal heads, skins and in fact entire bodies of animals were mounted and sold almost everywhere in North America and Europe. He told me once one of the buildings he built on Banff Avenue was paid for entirely from antelope heads and horns, mounted and sold mostly in the eastern United States.
In the many enterprises he took part in Norman Luxton was an astute and determined businessman. Because of his ability and agility in the business world he made some enemies. It never worried Norman because he looked on it as part of the game and believed the man who does not make a few enemies makes even fewer friends. And friends he had by the score!
More than one hard-pressed young fellow he staked through lean winters and they repaid him in cash when they had it and friendship and admiration for the rest of their lives. There was the odd one, but not many, who failed to pay back the grubstakes Norman provided. The one who repaid were numerous enough that Norman never lost his optimism about human nature or his keen sense of humor.
Physically, Norman Luxton was what the old timers called "a skookum man." He was physically tough and resilient. He had to be, else he could not have come through the ordeal of the long ocean journey across the Pacific in the doughnut canoe, the old Tillicum. It took plain, old-fashioned gut to do that and many of the other things Norman did on the water and along bush trails. And some of the things he did during his early newspaper career were just as clever and courageous as anything Bob Edwards of the Eye Opener ever did. But Norman only talked about such things, years after they happened and to intimate friends.
Inscription
Sailed Pacific Ocean from Vancouver to New Zeland in thirty foot indian dugout tilikum 1902.
Gravesite Details
The birth year on the grave marker is incorrect.
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
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