Stuart Milton Hodgson

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Stuart (Stu) Milton Hodgson, OC , LL.D (born 1924 April 1 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) was Commissioner of the Northwest Territories (NWT) from 1967 March 2 until 1979 April 6. The first Commissioner to actually reside in the Northwest Territories, he was a leader in the construction of a semiautonomous, responsible self-government run by residents of the territory.

Hodgson was also one of the founders of the Arctic Winter Games - which began in Yellowknife in 1970 for athletes from Alaska, Yukon, and the NWT – and which now also include Greenland, parts of Arctic Russia, as well as Northern Alberta and Nunavik (Northern Quebec), and the new territory Nunavut which was formed from NWT in 1999.

When rapid changes in socio-economic conditions threatened the continuity of Inuit oral history, Commissioner Hodgson urged the taping of elders' stories. In 1974, the residents of Pangnirtung (since then becoming part of Nunavut) presented the Commissioner with eleven stories which were later compiled into a book. Hodgson was nicknamed "Umingmak" by the Inuit. For his services in the NWT, he was presented the public service's Outstanding Achievement Award in 1976.

From 1942 to 1945 he served with the Royal Canadian Navy on convoy duty in the North Atlantic for which he received the Atlantic Star and other World War II medals.

From 1979 to 1981 he was Canadian co-chairman of the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission. He was recruited by Premier William R. Bennett of British Columbia to run BC Ferries for a time in the 1980s.

He was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of the BC Transit in 1985. Appointed a Citizenship Judge in British Columbia in December 1997, Judge Hodgson is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

[edit] External links

• Commissioner Hodgson (standing) at the 1967 NWT Legislative Assembly
• Stuart M. Hodgson Order of Canada
• My Little Corner of Canada - "The last colonial czar" by John Amagoalik
• Stuart M. Hodgson at the Canadian Encyclopedia

Political offices
Preceded by Wilfred G. Brown	Presiding Officer of the Northwest Territories Council 1965 – 1967	Succeeded by John Havelock Parker
	Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories 1965 – 1967
Preceded by Bent Gestur Sivertz	Commissioner of the Northwest Territories 1967 – 1979