By March Brown
Smokey wisps of morning mist rose off the calm waters
of Saanich Inlet when Jim Gilbert and I trolled our lures past Wain Rock. We
had had a little action but nothing to write home about. Jimmy told me to be
patient because the bite wouldn’t start for another half hour. Forty years of
guiding and sport fishing gave him the intuition to have that special ‘feeling’
when action was about to occur. Sure enough, a short time later the line popped
out of the starboard downrigger and a small coho started dancing over the
surface. About the same time, I spotted gulls and terns diving into a balled-up
school of herring. A group of lazy seals slid off the rocks and joined the
feast. It was like all of nature was waking up after a sleep. How did Jim
Gilbert know? Years spent on the water with an artist’s eye gave him the
experience.
Suddenly, a mature bald eagle dropped from the sky and
splashed into the water. It tried to take off again with a small salmon
clutched in its talons, but the fish was too big. The eagle flapped and swam to
shore, pulling the salmon with it. It crawled out on the rocks of Moses Point
and spread its wings to dry. The eagle took on the pose of a native Indian design
“Look at that,” said Jimmy “it gives me an idea for another
painting, or even a carving.”
Jim Gilbert retired from the guiding and marina
business in 1972 and became a full-time successful artist. Retirement from the
fishing business didn’t mean he no longer had any involvement with or impact on
the industry. He still had his lure business. He became a founding member and
director of the Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia, a founding member
and director of the Victoria Charter-Boat Association and an executive member
of the Sports Fish Advisory Board and Chinook Management Committee.
Jim has long been a critic of the top brass in the federal
fisheries department. He feels DFO has no flexibility on internal creative
thinking to respond to a crisis. Jim has a lot of respect for the many hard-working
biologists but says lack of leadership is the problem. Nobody is putting all
the knowledge together to come up with a long-range viable plan. Most of the
money is spent on a bureaucracy in Ottawa and little filters down to the people
in the field who do the most important work.
Jim was born in 1932 and raised on Saanich Inlet. His
father started a boat building and rental business on Brentwood Bay in 1926.
Jim’s earliest memories are of sitting on the dock in a wire cage playpen while
his father rented boats and cleaned his clients’ catch. Jim watched with
interest and as he grew up he gradually began to help his father.
As a self-confessed ‘beach rat’ Jim became an entrepreneur
and guide at the early age of 13. He rented tackle and took greenhorns fishing.
The more experienced anglers were too proud to have a ‘kid’ guide them, even
though he usually out-fished them. With an artist’s creative mind, Jim studied
the water temperature, the tides, weather, and sea birds, and he learned all
the little secrets of nature that lead to more successful fishing. Continual
experimenting with a variety of bait, and methods of cutting it for different
action taught him how to be more efficient. His success rate increased and he
became more in demand as a guide. The marina and Jim’s charters continued to
expand until it was time to decide on a future.
Jim obtained a degree in fisheries biology after going
to Victoria College and the University of British Columbia. Each summer he
worked as a guide to finance his education. After graduating he was offered a
job at the Vancouver Aquarium, but turned it down, and spent a year in teacher training at Victoria Normal School.
He wanted to be as close as possible to the fishing in his beloved Saanich
Inlet. Jim then went into the family business as his father needed his help
to repair and run the marina.
One evening, after returning from a fishing trip Jim
suffered a mild heart attack from over-work and stress. Although he took a few
days off work, it didn’t slow him down and he took on another venture. With his
friend Jack Robertson they started manufacturing the ‘Krippled Minnow.’ It was
such a successful lure and the demand was so great, they had to expand.
The profits were turned back into the business.
Unfortunately, in 1965 Jack Robertson was killed in a plane crash and Jim had
to take over the whole business. He continued to expand it.
Jim’s time was always in demand. He was chosen to
guide such notables as John Diefenbaker, Lester B. Pearson, W.A.C. Bennett and
hockey legend Gordie Howe. They all managed to catch salmon when fishing with
Jim. In fact, Jim Gilbert set a record that is unlikely to be broken. He guided
331 successive trips without a skunking. Jim was appointed as a sport fishing advisor
for federal fisheries and he gave sport fishing seminars to the public.
Jim’s father died in 1967 of a heart attack and Jim
remembered his father’s advice to slow down or he would die wealthy but with a
stomach full of ulcers. Jim stopped trying to expand, and in 1970 he sold the
marina, but continued with his charter operation.
[From here summarized by DC Reid]
This gave more time for his west coast native art.
When the demand increased for his art, and his interest subsided, Jim gave up
the business in 1972. He moved into his new ventures with the enthusiasm of his
previous endeavors. He wrote a couple of publications on fishing: 'Drift Fishing' and
'Flashers', and he learned all forms of art, worked on graphic paintings,
carvings in bone stone, inlaid shell, and hand sculptured jewelry in pieces of
gold.
Jim had been influenced by art from an early age and
his childhood fishing partners, Indians. He had studied art with the Hunt
family under a traditional apprenticeship. He worked for Tony Hunt at his
famous work the Raven. Jim had to learn the basics of carving to become a
carver, working for Henry Hunt. He learned the basics and developed his pieces
with his own original design.
Jim Gilbert has been a student of the art and with six
major “Tribal Groupings” of the Northwest coast. This involved teaching art and
he was hired by the Education Division with George Hunt Jr. for teaching. When George
left, Jim took over the program himself. This lead to a basic curriculum and
160-page book on the art pf the Northwest Coast.
Jim is now an internationally recognized artist, with
graphics and sculpture throughout North America, Asia and Australia.
