35 Facts About Grant MacEwan

Grant MacEwan was born in Brandon, Manitoba, and lived there until the age of thirteen.

Grant MacEwan delivered newspapers and sold vegetables and various other items.

Grant MacEwan went to school and spent most of his time helping out on the family farm.

In 1921, at the age of nineteen, Grant MacEwan went to Guelph, Ontario to attend the Ontario Agricultural College.

Grant MacEwan attended the OAC for five years before going back to Melfort.

Grant MacEwan was often placed among the top of his class.

Grant MacEwan lived in College, and took part in a multitude of campus activities, including the football and basketball teams.

Grant MacEwan's family was very tightly knit, and George had been very close to his parents.

On May 28,1926, Grant MacEwan graduated from the OAC along with 33 other boys with a BSc degree.

Grant MacEwan left home to complete a one-year program.

Grant MacEwan held a position first as a professor, then Head of Animal Husbandry at the University of Saskatchewan from 1928 to 1946.

Grant MacEwan researched and published manuscripts on many farming and ranching techniques.

In 1932, Grant MacEwan took a trip to Great Britain with a load of cattle, to observe ranching practices in the British Isles.

Grant MacEwan returned to Canada via the Hudson Bay ship route north along the coasts of Iceland and Greenland, then entering Hudson Bay and landing at Churchill, Manitoba.

Grant MacEwan was the first person to go through customs at the new port in Churchill.

Grant MacEwan married Phyllis Cline, a school teacher from Saskatchewan, in 1935.

Second, when it came time for the new couple to leave, MacEwan could not be found until someone looked out at the parking lot, where Grant was fixing a flat tire.

In 1946 Grant MacEwan moved to the University of Manitoba to be the Dean of Agriculture.

Grant MacEwan was defeated by Progressive Conservative Walter Dinsdale by a wide margin finishing second in the two candidate race.

Grant MacEwan had been parachuted in the district while he was still living in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Grant MacEwan won a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1955, and from November 1958 MacEwan led the Alberta Liberal Party through a provincial election.

Grant MacEwan's party won only one seat in the 1959 election, with MacEwan suffering personal defeat in a new single-member Calgary district, Calgary-North.

Grant MacEwan remained the leader of the party until 1960.

Grant MacEwan served as Calgary alderman from 1953 to 1963 and then as mayor from 1963 to 1965.

Calgary at the time was using single transferable voting and instant run-off voting, and Grant MacEwan had more success under that system than under the FPTP system used in provincial elections.

Grant MacEwan served as Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta from 1966 to 1974.

However, Grant MacEwan primarily advocated for wildlife conservation rather than focusing on the negative ecological impacts of oil sands development.

Grant MacEwan produced almost all of his historical books after his 'retirement'.

Grant MacEwan taught numerous courses at the University of Calgary and Olds College.

Grant MacEwan became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1974.

Grant MacEwan continued to be physically active and was not known to waste any time.

Grant MacEwan believed that anyone awake should be doing something.

Grant MacEwan continued to give speeches, and published two more books in the 1990s.

Grant MacEwan died a month later in Calgary, aged 97, and was given a state funeral, the first one in Alberta since 1963, at Robertson-Wesley United Church in Edmonton.

Grant MacEwan is often seen as an iconic historic figurehead in Alberta, and many places, institutions, and organizations have been named after him.