James Henry Gray, was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 journalist, historian and author.

Born in Whitemouth, Manitoba

Whitemouth, Manitoba

Whitemouth is a community in the Rural Municipality of Whitemouth located in southeastern Manitoba, Canada. The community is named after the Whitemouth River. It was built along the main Canadian Pacific Railway line....

, he moved to Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...

 with his parents in 1911. In 1922, he dropped out of public school and went to work at the Winnipeg Grain Exchange

Winnipeg Grain Exchange

The Winnipeg Grain Exchange was established in 1887, and dissolution in 1986.It was also the predecessor of the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange.- List of Presidents :The exchange had 97 presidents, Of which:...

 as a messenger. Over the next eight years, he worked at the Exchange as an office clerk, bookkeeper, statistician and grain trader.

He was laid off in 1930 because of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, and spent the next four years on unemployment relief. During that time, he upgraded his education by reading library books on politics, religion and economics, with a view to becoming a freelance writer.

In 1933, after two years of trying, he finally sold a freelance article to the Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press

The Winnipeg Free Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Founded in 1872, as the Manitoba Free Press, it is the oldest newspaper in western Canada. It is the newspaper with the largest readership in the province....

. Two years later, he was hired on as a full-time reporter. He worked there until 1947 as a city hall reporter, editorial writer and Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 correspondent. He left the paper because he didn't want to write articles supporting his editor's opposition to federal agricultural subsidies, and moved to Calgary, Alberta.

He was editor of the Farm and Ranch Review until 1955, when he became editor of the Western Oil Examiner. From 1958 to 1964, he was manager of public relations for Home Oil. He took early retirement in 1964, to complete work on his first book, The Winter Years. Between 1966 and 1991, he published a succession of bestselling popular histories of Western Canada.

In 1967, he won the Historical Society of Alberta's award for "outstanding contribution to Alberta history." In 1970, he received the University of British Columbia

University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

 medal for popular biography. In 1980, he was chosen by Alberta Report

Alberta Report

Alberta Report was a right-wing weekly newsmagazine based in Edmonton. It was founded and edited by Ted Byfield, now the editor and president of the Society to Explore and Record Christian History , and later run by his son, Link Byfield, and ceased publication in 2003.The magazine began as St....

 magazine as one of the top twelve Albertans of the 1970s for "creating a series of popular histories on the agonies and triumphs that brought about Western Canada."

In 1987, he was inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence

Alberta Order of Excellence

The Alberta Order of Excellence is a civilian honour for merit in the Canadian province of Alberta. Instituted in 1979 when Lieutenant Governor Frank C...

. In 1988, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

. In 1995, he received the Pierre Berton

Pierre Berton

Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, was a noted Canadian author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and was a well-known television personality and journalist....

 Award for popularizing Canadian history. In 1996, the City of Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 dedicated a small park in his name. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary

University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

, the University of Brandon and the University of Manitoba

University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...

.

He died in Calgary, Alberta.

Selected bibliography

• The Winter Years (1966)
• Men Against the Desert (1967)
• The Boy from Winnipeg (1970)
• Red Lights on the Prairies (1971)
• Booze – When Whisky Ruled the West (1972)
• The Roar of the Twenties (1975)
• Troublemaker! (an autobiography) (1978)
• Boomtime (1979)
• Bacchanalia Revisited (1982)
• A Brand of its Own: A History of the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede (1985)
• Talk to My Lawyer (1987)
• R.B. Bennett: The Calgary Years (1991)

External links

• James Henry Gray at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia
  The Canadian Encyclopedia is a source of information on Canada. It is available online, at no cost. The Canadian Encyclopedia is available in both English and French and includes some 14,000 articles in each language on a wide variety of subjects including history, popular culture, events, people,...