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HISTORIC FIGURE DAN H. MINCHIN
By Lionel Frey
As with any historic figure, we’ve heard a lot about Dan H. Minchin, the first president of the Grande Prairie & District Chamber back in 1915, but the passage of time has hindered making a lot of personal connections with him.
The local Chamber even has an award named after him, the Dan H. Minchin Award, that is given to a member of the Chamber with a long and storied track record in the business community. That distinction, however, still does not tell the whole story of the individual who inspired it. What did he do for a living? What type of person was he? All of these questions have been left to the imagination of most barring some direct link to the
man himself.
“He was a timber inspector,” says Bill Minchin, Dan’s son. “This was at a time when natural resources were a part of the dominion government.” Speaking from his home in Kitimat, British Columbia, Bill’s recollections of his father cross between vivid memories and vague images of the man that has the distinction of being the first elected official of the local Chamber. As time would spell out, elections would be nothing new to Dan, as he once vied for a position in the federal ring. “He was always interested in politics and he read a lot,” notes Bill. “Early on, in 1917, he became a Conservative candidate for the election. He didn’t win; the Liberal guy won.”
Born in Dundas, Ontario in 1884, Dan Minchin came to Alberta in 1906; but, the Peace Country was not his destination of choice at first. The young blacksmith and farmer spent seven years in the Spruce Grove area before taking up land near Bezanson in 1913. Just months before, on New Year’s Eve of 1912, he married. “The reason they moved into that district was because they thought that was where the rail line would be operating,” says Bill, who was born in Grande Prairie in February of 1927 when Dan was 43 years old.
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After spending 14 years in the area, the Minchin’s moved to Calgary in the fall of 1927 and spent five years in Cowtown before moving back to Peace River in 1932 and settling for a final time in Grande Prairie in 1933. “By that time, the Statutes of Westminster kicked in and the management of resources became the responsibility of the provinces. That’s when he went back to farming,” says Bill, noting his father’s duties with the dominion had come to pass.
Even though he can’t recall any time that his father spent working on Chamber matters in those early years due to not being around at the time (fair excuse), Bill says he can remember his father being ambitious and up for many challenges. He would have had to have been ambitious to help spearhead an organization like the Chamber at a time when business activity was not exactly heavy on the radar screen for the relatively few people involved with such a movement at the time.
In some ways, though, Minchin Sr. was probably as much of an enigma for his son as he was for some of us today. After all, the young Minchin was just 25 years old when his father passed away in 1952 – hardly a lifetime to get to know someone as close to you as your father. “When I got word, I was on a hydroelectric job north of Whitehorse,” Bill remembers of his father’s passing. After that, Bill spent just a few more years in Grande Prairie before signing on with Alcan Aluminum and taking a post in Quebec from 1956 to 1964. From there, he moved to Kitimat where he has been ever since. He still has friends in the Grande Prairie area that he touches base with on occasion.
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