Dief the Chief Fishing with Jim

Among the many luminaries who had the great good fortune to fish with the west coast’s brightest fishing luminary, Jimmy Gilbert, was Dief the Chief, as Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was known to Canadians.

Born in 1895, Dief was, after many attempts, first elected to the House of Commons in 1940. He ran many times for the PC leadership, too, finally accepting the mantle in 1956. He was Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963. While he made the wrong decision with the best fighter jet ever to see the sky, the Avro Arrow, he made the right decision to go fishing with Jim.

Dief had a grand opinion of himself, and that shines through in the pictures taken during and after his time learning from Jim. His greatest good fortune, was to appear in Time Magazine, Jan 17, 1964 taking tutelage from the Master himself:

This looks to me like the outside of Willis Point with Sheppard Point in the background, en route to Mackenzie Bight. Note the rocks on the transom of Gilbert’s boat, which were used for weights – inserted in nylons – prior to downriggers. Note also the Peetz wooden reels, which look loaded with monofilament line, rather than wire line used with planers. 

As gregarious and bombastic as Dief was, he had to get in on the act, and net a fish himself, something that a neophyte ought leave to the captain’s choice. The easiest thing to get caught is what catches the fish - the hook - and once in a net, you lose the fish and net the hook.

In this next one, you will note the net, safely in Gilbert’s hand, and the fish in Dief’s. 

I’ll bet that Jim held the net a number of times that day, as Dief holds a prodigious catch of chinook at day’s end. (Note the black mouths, suggesting that no blueback, Cowichan coho are on the ‘stringer’. The letter from Diefenbaker, below, is January 1964, implying that it was a winter day that was fished, with bluebacks being available in Saanich Inlet from late November to late February).

A letter to Jim from Esquimalt/Saanich MP GL Chatterton says:

I am enclosing a couple of photographs Doug Leiterman took on the boat and sent to me. I thought you would appreciate having them for your scrapbook.

The Chief has never stopped talking about the wonderful days of fishing we had and I want to express to you my sincere appreciation for the good company and expert guidance.

Yours sincerely

G.L. Chatterton, M.P.,

Esquimalt-Saanich.

In fact, the Chief was so moved by all the fish he caught, he wrote a letter to Jim Gilbert as well. I have enlarged the image so you can read it yourself. As an image, it gives an era-accurate example of a hand-written letter, that these days are called emails or text messages. It also shows how Diefenbaker signed his name.

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Final note: All these Jim Gilbert images are from originals maintained by Joan Gilbert. Other well-known types came to fish with Jim, too: George ‘Dub-yah’ Bush, Oscar Peterson, Lester Pearson, Gordie Howe, and etc. We’ll get to them in future stories.