Whitehorse Daily Star

Image title

Photo by Whitehorse Star

LATE ICON REMEMBERED – Alex Van Bibber celebrates his 98th birthday last April at the 98 Hotel. Here, he cheers the crowd after they sang ‘Happy Birthday.’

‘Alex Van Bibber enriched the lives of our nation’

Fourteen years ago, Alex Van Bibber sat alone on a gravel bar in the northern Mackenzie Mountains, enduring a blistering snowstorm.

By Christopher Reynolds on November 26, 2014

Fourteen years ago, Alex Van Bibber sat alone on a gravel bar in the northern Mackenzie Mountains, enduring a blistering snowstorm.

At 84 years old, the legendary Yukon outfitter, trapper and educator wasn’t letting age or the elements deter him from meeting up with a fellow hunter in the remote reaches of the Northwest Territories.

“I had dropped him off from an airplane,” Kelly Hougen, his longtime trapping partner and best friend, recalled during an interview this morning.

“He didn’t have all his gear yet, and a front came through that was just nasty, snowing and blowing.”

Worried, Hougen flew back through the storm to check up on the minimally equipped Van Bibber.

“He had a fire going, and basically scolded me for coming to get him. That was the kind of guy he was.”

Van Bibber, who continued to hunt and teach for the next decade-and-a-half, died early this morning at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.

He was 98.

Hougen first met him as a teenager 42 years ago. He was hired on as a horse wrangler at the Ruby Range ranch, where Van Bibber was chief guide.

“We worked together that summer, and we’ve been the best of friends ever since,” Hougen told the Star.

He would go on to marry Van Bibber’s granddaughter, Heather, in a wedding where the backwoods master would serve as best man.

“He was guiding hunters well into his 70s. And most of the younger fellows had a heck of a time keeping up with him,” Hougen recalled.

“He just never stopped, didn’t need much sleep, tough as nails. Strong.

“The Yukon without Alex is like a day without sunshine,” Hougen said from Calgary, where he spoke with Van Bibber at his hospital bed hours before he died. “It’s been sunny since I got here (last week), and the day Alex passed away, it got overcast.”

Van Bibber, whose storytelling skills were as famed as his good humour, began to pass on his traditional knowledge more formally as chief trapping instructor with the Yukon government in 1976, though he’d already been doing it in the bush for 60 years — even guiding then-U.S. senator Robert Kennedy up the Yukon’s Mount Kennedy in 1965 and presenting him with a gold sheep-head necktie.

“He basically has been the face and the name behind trapper training for at least the past 30, 35 years,” said Harvey Jessup, a close friend and member of the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board.

Van Bibber, who earned the Order of Canada in 1992 for his role as an instructor and educator, would go on to co-ordinate curriculum development for the board.

He also founded the summer kids camp with Hougen at the Fish and Game Association and became active with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations and schools in Whitehorse.

Jessup recalled going with Van Bibber to a community hall in a village on the Black River in Alaska, south of Old Crow near the border, for a trapping workshop in the mid-1990s.

“Alex brought out his great 330 Conibear trap, and they all took a step back. And he set the trap and they take a further step back. His arms are waving and it caught him,” Jessup said.

“And when that trap hit, it got Alex’s watch, and it just exploded, and the whole place lets out a gasp and jumps up and chairs are falling over.

“He says, ‘Now what are you gonna do — you’re caught in your own trap.’ He just took it in stride. It was intentional, and he wanted you to know there’s no need to be afraid of the trap,” Jessup said.

“I’ve been all over northwestern Canada, and I’ve never ever seen anybody do that.”

Van Bibber was 77 at the time.

Born on the banks of the Pelly River on April 4, 1916, Van Bibber was one of 14 siblings raised in a Champagne and Aishihik First Nations family.

From a young age, he and his siblings would travel by homemade raft along the Pelly River to Dawson City for seasonal schooling, ending his formal education in Grade 5.

“His dad would say, ‘Alex, if the raft starts to sink, pull onto the shore and put another dry log under it,” said Commissioner Doug Phillips, who has known Van Bibber as long as he can remember.

“He was 13 years old when he did that.”

The commissioner said he recalled reading stories as a young boy in the Star of Alex Van Bibber “as one of the best wilderness guides in the world for hunting.”

Years later, Phillips went looking for big game with Van Bibber on multiple trips.

He recalled a bison-hunting excursion in the 1980s, “and he was as much an active person in the camp as anyone, cutting the wood and butchering the meat.

“And at night, when we were sitting around the table and the rum came out in the cabin, that would open up Alex’s stories. And there was one after the other, and Alex would just mesmerize you,” he said.

“Sometimes I don’t even think he knew he was passing on this really valuable information. And he loved to laugh,” Phillips added.

Starting his professional hunting and guiding career in 1943, Van Bibber left the gold dredges of Dawson in 1943 to tread the territory for six decades as a renowned outfitter.

For 20 years, he operated his own guiding territory with his wife, Sue, also born and raised in the bush.

Renowned Yukon artist Jim Robb worked with Van Bibber on a crew in 1956 to locate the ideal site for the future Whitehorse Rapids Dam, built two years later.

Van Bibber was the straw boss, transporting and co-ordinating the labourers, while Robb — then in his 20s — wielded a shovel.

“I’d dig a hole and place some dynamite and they could tell by the explosions how solid the bedrock was,” he told the Star.

“He was a great guy and an interesting person to talk to,” said Robb — high praise from a man famed for documenting the so-called “Colourful Five-percent.”

“He told us a story one time about how he just saw something move, like snow move, and it was a grizzly getting ready to charge him,” Robb recalled.

“Very calmly, he just loaded up the gun, it got up close to him — the way he tells it was much more interesting — and he did what he had to do.”

Van Bibber was active at the fish and game association through last summer, said Gord Zealand, the executive director.

For decades, he led children on overnight hikes to his mountain cabin, “and it was never the same, there was no standard program that he followed,” Zealand said.

“He passed on his knowledge of the outdoors and things to do and not to do in the wilderness ... and when you ask the kids what stood out for them, it’s always the times with Alex that were the real special times — every one of them said that,” Zealand added.

“They don’t build them like that guy anymore.”

MP Ryan Leef recalled working with Van Bibber as a conservation officer.

“It just came so naturally to him, his skill and his knowledge and his advice to people. He a had a story for every example he gave, and he kept people entertained and captivated,” Leef said.

“He saw so many changes in this world, and was an element of a lot of that change in our territory. Motor vehicles coming through our territory for the first time, to the change from horse-drawn railways to trains, to the disappearance of the paddle wheelers and now Netflix and Youtube.

“It’s going to take a lifetime of ours just to talk about his. He absolutely enriched the lives of Yukoners,” Leef said.

“Alex Van Bibber enriched the lives of our nation. He was an outstanding Canadian. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Over the years, he was formally recognized with awards including the Order of Canada in 1992, the Yukon Fish and Game Association Sportsman of the Year Award in 1995, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation Roland Michener Award 1996.

Van Bibber, weakened by pneumonia and influenza in his final days, died surrounded by the nearly 30 friends and family members who had flown down from the Yukon to be with him.

He is survived by four of his 13 siblings, as well as a daughter and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

He was predeceased by Sue, who passed away four years ago at age 99, as well as two children.

Comments (7)

Up 12 Down 1

Wilf Carter on Nov 28, 2014 at 2:16 pm

The man with the smile that warmed the hearts of anyone who had the opportunity to spend time with him. Proud to have known you.

Up 11 Down 4

Heather Kennedy (Tudor) on Nov 28, 2014 at 2:12 pm

Alex and my dad, Hugh Kennedy, were great friends for many years. I have wonderful memories of him and Sue at our house on Hawkins Street, and spending days at Champagne with my dad. Alex was always such a positive person, and a joy to be with. I last saw him three years ago at Yukoners in Vancouver, and at 96 years young, he knew exactly who I was and shared some wonderful stories of his times with my dad. The end of an era for so many of us. I will miss him.

Up 14 Down 2

Bob Carmichael on Nov 28, 2014 at 9:13 am

In a long career in wildlife conservation, I was privileged to meet some amazing people. None more amazing -or more inspiring - than Alex Van Bibber. A legend, a leader, a true friend.

Bob Carmichael
Winnipeg.

Up 16 Down 0

Rob Cahill, Sr. Vice-President, North American Fur Auctions on Nov 27, 2014 at 8:12 pm

Alex was an amazing individual, an icon who will be missed by so many. His lessons and memories of him will endure. Thank you Alex. Rest in Peace.
Rob

Up 15 Down 0

Kevin Neufeld on Nov 27, 2014 at 6:47 pm

An amazing example as a man and a tremendous ambassader of the territory and it's wilderness. You will be ever missed and your boots never filled.

Up 28 Down 0

DK on Nov 27, 2014 at 12:12 am

One amazing person. Condolences to the family, he will be missed.

Up 19 Down 0

Yukoner Forever on Nov 26, 2014 at 5:54 pm

Excellent writing on this sad but important tale Christopher. Thank you very much. YF.

Add your comments or reply via Twitter @whitehorsestar

In order to encourage thoughtful and responsible discussion, website comments will not be visible until a moderator approves them. Please add comments judiciously and refrain from maligning any individual or institution. Read about our user comment and privacy policies.

Your name and email address are required before your comment is posted. Otherwise, your comment will not be posted.