Mel Hurtig is remembered as a fierce nationalist and devoted father who published The Canadian Encyclopedia. Hurtig died at the age of 84, surrounded by his daughters after a short bout of pneumonia in a Vancouver hospital.
Born in Edmonton in 1932, Hurtig has opened the city’s first independent bookstore with just $500 in 1956. He operated three highly successful stores in the city by 1972. Patrons can socialize, sip coffee and play chess in his establishments, where he also held theatrical performances and readings. His publishing company, Hurtig Publishing, has produced several significant titles, including The Canadian Encyclopedia.
“It took the work of hundreds and hundreds of people across the country writing about little articles about their fields of expertise to bring this thing together,” Hurtig’s friend, Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid said.
“There were times, by Mel’s own telling, where it looked like it might not even be possible to publish it. Yet, he did it. He did it by sheer force of will from his little publishing house in Edmonton. And it was and remains, the single greatest publishing feat in the history of Canadian publishing.”
An economic nationalist, he was a founding member of the Committee for an Independent Canada, the Council of Canadians and led the National Party of Canada.
“Let’s never, never, give in to those who are selling out Canada,” Hurtig urged in his 2002 book The Vanishing Country.
“He was ferocious in his convictions and beliefs,” Braid said. “His loathing for [former prime minister] Stephen Harper is almost Olympian.”
“Still to this day one of my favourite memories of Dad is, he used to come into the kitchen when we were growing up and he would take three oranges and say, ‘Watch this, girls,’ and start juggling the oranges, and we’d all be excited,” Barb Hurtig, his daughter said.
“Then he’d grab three glasses and pretend that he was going to juggle the glasses and we would all scream, ‘No, Dad, no!’ For some reason, that’s something that just really sticks in my mind. He’d always like to try to entertain us with juggling and funny things that he couldn’t really do that well, but he liked to think that he could do.”
“He was very funny, he loved to tell jokes and he loved to make people laugh.”
Hurtig was an avid golfer and reader, and his hunger for knowledge had an impact on his daughters, Leslie Hurtig, his another daughter said.
“He believed in the people of Alberta and he believed it could be a place where all people could prosper and all people could live good lives,” Leslie said.
“Edmonton, that was his blood,” Leslie said. “Edmonton was in his blood.”
By Premji
