Andrew Hall Macpherson (1932-2002)

At [Tom Manning]'s memorial service, [Andrew Hall Macpherson] described Tom as quiet, knowledgeable, well suited for working in the Arctic, being vigorous and confident, patient and painstaking, imaginative and resilient. I believe that Andrew shared all of those attributes. Andrew demonstrated his skill as an administrator and his ongoing willingness to take on new challenges, making hard and unpopular decisions when necessary. However, he had another side that reflected his whole being: he was loyal to his friends. I myself was the beneficiary of his allegiance at two pivotal points nearly a decade apart in my deciding whether to stay with or leave CWS. One of the best examples of this loyalty to his friends was his rescue of Tom Manning when Tom went missing in James Bay in late March 1969. Tom's party had landed their helicopter on an ice floe to immobilize a polar bear. Murphy's Law, ever present in the Arctic, kicked in: the helicopter engine cooled down too much and refused to restart. The ice floe cracked right under the helicopter, and they had what [M'Clure] would have called a perilous moment in the Arctic! After they were overdue back at Fort George, the Canadian Forces Search and Rescue Hercules looked for them without success, though it had unknowingly flown right over them. When Andrew heard that Tom was missing, he immediately flew up to Fort George to join the search. In Fort George, Andrew searched the room where Tom and the pilot had been staying, because he could not believe Tom would not have left word of their destination. He found a note indicating that they planned to work near Bare Island. Then Andrew flew out, together with Beaver pilot Derry Tozier of Fort George, and found the stranded party on the shrinking ice floe. The Beaver pilot made a skillful and dangerous landing on the floe and taxied near the helicopter. It is said that when Andrew got out of the plane and Tom saw who it was, he said, "Hello, Andrew," as though they had just dropped in unannounced for tea! There is no doubt that Andrew Macpherson was by anyone's standards a highly intelligent, successful, personable, humorous, and inquisitive person. However, an additional measure of success in life, which is hard to obtain and especially difficult to retain regardless of one's personal ability, is managing to keep one's perspective, ordering priorities for the greatest enjoyment of life. Andrew appeared to be quite successful at keeping his priorities right! Perhaps