Andrew G. A. Russell, (1915 – June 1, 2005) was a Canadian wilderness guide, outfitter, author, photographer, filmmaker, rancher, conservationist, and environmentalist. In recognition of his environmental advocacy he received honorary degrees from the University of Lethbridge, the University of Calgary, and the University of Alberta. In 1976, he received the Julian T. Crandall Award for his efforts in conservation, and in 1977 he was presented with the Order of Canada by the Governor General of Canada.
Early life Russell was born in 1915 in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. His parents ranched on the prairies southwest of the city until 1919, when they moved to the foot of the Rocky Mountains near Drywood Creek, north of what is now Waterton Lakes National Park. Russell attended the rural Drywood School; later he boarded in Lethbridge to complete tenth grade and part of the eleventh grade. Later in life would describe his schooling as "limited formal variety, considerable Rocky Mountain variety."See "Note about the Author," in Trails of a Wilderness Wanderer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.) At sixteen Russell went to work, initially as an agricultural hand and then as a trapper. But unlike other trappers, Russell was not simply interested in making money; he was curious about the animals. He read everything he could about the habits of the animals of the Rocky Mountains.Andy Rusell, Memoirs of a Mountain Man (Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1984), 48–60).
Career In 1936, Russell began training horses for Frederick Herbert (Bert) Riggall. As a local outfitter, Riggall had been leading hunters and tourists into the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia since 1909.Frederick Herbert Riggall (1884–1959) emigrated from England to Canada in 1904 looking for a "Canadian Switzerland." For a biographical account of his life see Doris (née Riggall) Burton, Bert Riggall: Mountain Guide Extraordinary (Hanna: Gorman & Gorman Ltd., 1990). Riggall was, according to Russell, "a master hunter...[and] a great naturalist and botanist...with a good sound layman's grounding in geology and natural history."Andy Russell, Memoirs of a Mountain Man (Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1984), 83. In 1938, Russell married Riggall's daughter Kay Riggall. Together they had five children: Dick, Charlie, John, Gordon, and Anne. Russell became a partner of his father-in-law's business in 1939, took ownership in 1946, and continued operations until 1960. During the years that Russell operated the Skyline Saddle Horse and Packtrain Company, he developed a solid reputation as a guide and outfitter. His clients included, among others, Warren Page, the gun editor at Field & Stream Magazine, and Viscount Harold Alexander, the Governor General of Canada. He also secured an exclusive contract to provide outfitting and guiding services for guests staying at the Great Northern Railway's Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park. At the same time, he continued providing outfitting services to private clients, including several families from Minneapolis who had first hired the outfit decades earlier when Riggall was still owner.Andy Russell, interview by Kreg Sky, Turner Valley, Alberta, 4 June 1983, Kreg Sky's Guides and Outfitters Oral History Project Collection, RCT 554, Glenbow Museum and Archives. See also Andy Russell, Memoirs of a Mountain Man (Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1984), 142–148.
By the early 1950s, Russell could see that there was little future in the guiding and outfitting business. The construction of all-weather roads made the mountains of southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia increasingly accessible to automobile travel. Additionally, industrial activities, such as petroleum development and timber harvesting, had compromised the aesthetic value of much of the anti-modern wilderness landscapes that comprised Russell's traditional guiding territory. Human pressures upon the environment increased as more and more people were competing to use the same land for various, often incompatible, purposes. The inevitable land-use conflicts that arose ensured that provincial officials figured more prominently into the overall management of the region. Reflecting on those years, Russell would later lament that he was "regulated out of business."Andy Russell, interview by Leslie Robertson, Andy Russell's home near Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, 29 May 1995, Waterton Centennial Oral History Project Collection, RCT 892, Glenbow Museum and Archives. To adapt to the evolving situation, Russell exchanged his rifle for a camera and a pen. He began to write articles and books, create films, and give public lectures. His goal was to bring people around to the understanding that humans "are only a part of nature, a portion of a vast ecosystem."See the editorial submission "Andy Russell," Lethbridge Herald, September 22, 1971. "Every time," he wrote, "that man walks into his home, turns a tap, eats, puts on clothes or drives a car, he is calling on nature for the means to his way of life. The mere fact that most of what he sees or touches are manufactured things does not change the picture by even a hair. For all the raw products used by man are supplied by nature."See Andy Russell "A Way of Life," Lethbridge Herald, October 6, 1971.
Russell was not new to the world of writing and publishing. At least since 1945 he had been submitting articles on hunting, "outdoor life," and natural history for publication in popular magazines.Reporters from the Lethbridge Herald noted in early 1946 that Russell "had several of his stories on outdoor life, hunting, etc., accepted for publication by internationally known magazines. We are pleased to hear that Andy has been recently admitted to membership in the Outdoor Writers' Association of America," see "Fish and Game, News and Information," Lethbridge Herald, May 18, 1946. Sometimes these were written simply to provide readers with trip reports, equipment reviews, and descriptions of technique, but more often the articles were normative in tone and written to persuade readers to rethink their understanding of, and their relationship with, wildlife and wildlife habitats. In an article published in 1946 in Natural History Magazine, for example, Russell argued that wildlife behaviour was not solely an instinctual response (as was often assumed), but rather was in part, and even primarily, the result of reflective thought processes made possible by a "well-developed brain."Andrew G. A. Russell, "Can Animals Think?" Natural History Magazine: The Magazine of the American Museum of Natural History 55, no. 10 (1946): 479. By the late 1940s, Russell was making intermittent editorial submissions to the Lethbridge Herald, and beginning in 1952 he began making regular submissions with a column entitled "Andy Russell's Sports Afield." In these articles he continued to encourage his readers to rethink their relationship with wildlife and wildlife habitat, reminding them of the possibility that the conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitat could result in important human benefits, including the enhancement of socio-economic wellbeing.See, for example, Andy Russell "Propagation of Fish and Game," Lethbridge Herald, December 11, 1947. In this early opinion piece Russell argued that "Fish and game conservation and restoration is not just a matter of sport for those who go afield with rod and gun, but it is an industry – a mighty big industry." See also Andy Russell, "Andy Russell's Sports Afield – Our Biggest Cat," Lethbridge Herald, January 2, 1953, for an early discussion on predator control.
Russell also became a filmmaker in the early 1950s, having learned the basics of the craft from the wealthy clients that he guided in the previous decades. His first serious effort as a filmmaker, over a dedicated period of seventeen months in the early 1950s, allowed him to record over of film capturing the habits of mountain sheep, largely in the area of Waterton Lakes National Park.Andy Russell, Memoirs of a Mountain Man (Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada, 1984), 240. By 1953, he was delivering that colour film as a public lecture to sold-out halls in numerous communities in southwestern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia, as well as to audiences in several American cities, including Minneapolis, Detroit, New York, and Chicago.See "Andy Russell Speaking Here Next Week," Lethbridge Herald, November 28, 1953. See also Diaries from 1955 and 1956 in Andy Russell Fonds, M153/303, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Library and Archives. This film was lengthened and in 1954 was delivered as "Wildlife in the Canadian Rockies"; it was designed to "promote good conservation measures and to remind people of the value of Canadian Wildlife."See "New Film Has Premiere: Grandeur of the Canadian Rockies Shown by Andy Russell," Lethbridge Herald, December 11, 1954.
Beginning in 1961 Russell, along with his oldest sons, Dick and Charlie, devoted three summers to intensive wildlife filming, focusing their attention on grizzly bears. They began near their home, collecting footage from Waterton Lakes National Park and the Akamina-Kishinena region of southeast British Columbia, before moving on to the Rogers Pass area in Glacier National Park. Ultimately, their focus on grizzly bears determined that they had to go much further north – to northern British Columbia, the Yukon Territory, and finally into Alaska and the central mountain ranges of McKinley (Denali) National Park. Russell was particularly motivated to present the "true character" of an animal that, in his opinion, had been unfairly maligned by public opinion. To establish the "desired atmosphere and proper protocol," Russell and his sons – much to the surprise of onlookers – began to leave their rifles behind during the second season, believing that "having a gun within reach, cached somewhere in a pack or a hidden holster, causes a man to act with unconscious arrogance and thus maybe to smell different or to transmit some kind of signal objectionable to bears."Andy Russell, Grizzly Country (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 267. Russell wrote about those experiences capturing grizzly bear images and film in Grizzly Country,Russell, Andy. Grizzly Country. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. a work of creative non-fiction that was published by New York-based Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1967. Sales from the book provided the financial resources that allowed Russell to finally edit and produce the film footage that he, Dick, and Charlie had collected between 1961 and 1964. In 1969, Russell began publicly presenting Grizzly Country, a narrated silent film that he presented in lecture halls throughout North America. When asked about his purpose, Russell explained that the film and the accompanying lecture were not only about wildlife habits, but also about "driv[ing] home a message that much of the wilderness area of Canada...is rapidly disappearing."See Human' Side of Animals Shown in film by Russell," Lethbridge Herald, February 22, 1969.