Husband, father, grandfather, educator, author, archivist of Manitoba. Born April 28, 1941, in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Died June 19 in Comox, B.C., of gallbladder cancer, aged 69.
Gordon Dodds devoted his life to remembering the past. To millions of Canadians, he leaves a priceless documentary legacy. Gordon was a professional archivist.
His first 24 years were spent in the village of Wideopen, in northern England, surrounded by traces of the Roman Empire, early Christianity and the Scottish border wars. There he soaked up a love of history, which he pursued in studies at Durham University culminating in an MA. He spent summers working in the local county archives.
In childhood, Gordon battled rheumatic fever, which left him with an irregular heartbeat and medical difficulties. When telling those closest to him that the end was in sight, he mused that he never thought he would make it to age 69. Until his final illness, Gordon treated his condition as an abnormality rather than a handicap - he kept it to himself and compensated with an incisive intellect and wry sense of humour.
In 1965, Gordon immigrated to Canada to teach in the first classes held at Simon Fraser University. Moving to Ottawa to teach at what is now Algonquin College, he met his wife, Marietta May, at the Victorian mansion where they both boarded. Married within months, they soon welcomed two children, Michelle and Stefan. This spring Gordon's first grandchild Yzabella arrived, just 12 days before his death.
In pursuing doctoral work, Gordon was thwarted by the disarray he found among records essential to his research. In that disappointment, he felt the calling to make archival documents more accessible to researchers. In 1972, he started working at the Archives of Ontario, moving later to the Public Archives of Canada.
As first president of the Association of Canadian Archivists, early editor of its scholarly journal and imaginative archival educator, Gordon was a key leader in transforming his profession in his adoptive country. Intellectually gifted and an inspired writer, Gordon's powerful influence on colleagues was remarkable.
Moving to Winnipeg in 1981, Gordon spent a quarter century at the Archives of Manitoba. After becoming provincial archivist in 1998, he successfully piloted model legislation, integrated records management and freedom of information with the Archives' traditional cultural role and championed the archival studies master's program at the University of Manitoba. In 2006, he retired with Marietta to Qualicum Beach, B.C.
Gordon urged archivists to dream big: "To reach forever and get nowhere can be damnable," he said, "but never to feel there was something worth reaching for is surely damnation." Gordon reached far, and made many of us reach further than we otherwise would have dared.
By Terry Cook, Gordon's friend and colleague.