Fonds 229 - Richard Finnie fonds

Richard Sterling Finnie, photographer, filmmaker and writer, was born in 1906 in Dawson City, Yukon Territories. His parents were Nellie Louise Roediger and Oswald Sterling Finnie, a mining recorder and Director of the Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch from 1921 to 1931. In 1909, the family moved to Ottawa and Richard Finnie attended local schools. From 1924 to 1927, he worked as a reporter for the "Ottawa Citizen" where he wrote a number of articles about the arctic. In 1924 and 1925, Richard Finnie joined Captain J.E. Bernier's arctic expeditions as a radio operator aboard the Canadian government ship "Arctic." During these trips, he received his first training as a cinematographer from George Valiquette. Bernier gave Finnie the ship's bell which he donated to the Bernier Museum in L'Islet, Quebec. I n 1928, Finnie traveled aboard the "Beothic" and filmed the 1928 Canadian government arctic expedition, which represents his first professional film, "In the Shadow of the Pole." In all, Richard Finnie made five expeditions by ship to the eastern arctic.

During the 1930s, he spent much of his time in northern Canada including time on King William Island, a year with the Copper Inuit of the western arctic and time on Baffin and Ellesmere Islands. He served on the Burwash Expedition of King William Island, one of Canada's first air expeditions in the Arctic. In 1937, he traveled aboard the "Nascopie" and produced films, which recorded the meeting of the Nascopie and the Aklavik at Bellot Island. During these years, he wrote "Lure of the North" and a film entitled "Dogrib Treaty." In 1942, Finnie left the National Film Board after producing a final film "Canada Moves North" which he also made into a book. In that same year, he was hired by the Betchel Corporation and produced films on the construction of the Alaska Highway and the Canol project. Richard Finnie spent 25 years as official historian and film producer for the Betchel Corporation until he retired in 1968. He traveled to many places to do his filmmaking, including Libya and Beirut.

His marriage to Alyce Robert ended in 1965 with her death. After Finnie retired, he continued an active life, lecturing and publishing on the Northwest and Yukon territories. Finnie was a fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America, honorary member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers and emeritus fellow of the Explorer's Club of New York and co-founder of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter, of which he was chairman for a decade. He also was a life member of the California Academy of Sciences and an active member of the New Orleans Jazz Club of northern California. Finnie died on February 2, 1987. His second wife, Anne Ackerman Finnie, died October 25, 1995.