Man of letters

Descendant of influential editor, Christopher Dafoe was a writer of many talents

By: Erik Pindera

It was sometime in the late 1950s and Christopher Grannis Dafoe was working late one night as a general assignment reporter for the Free Press.

The intrepid young journalist, assigned to cover a hostage situation, assumed the threat was over when he arrived to the house where it took place and saw no police activity.

He went right up to knock on the door, forcing a Winnipeg Police Service officer who’d been hiding nearby to drag him to safety as a gunshot rang out from the house.

Dafoe was quickly reassigned to drama critic, a beat with less risk of gross bodily harm, says his recent obituary.

“He didn’t last long as a general beat reporter but he became a columnist and then was, I think, one of the youngest people ever to be on the editorial page of the Free Press,” said his son, Alex.

Dafoe, grandson of influential Free Press editor John Wesley Dafoe and an esteemed journalist in his own right, died of congestive heart failure on April 3 in Vancouver. He was 89, and remained as sharp as a tack until late last year.

His family describes him — a man of many talents, interests and passions — as a writer, editor, journalist, novelist, columnist, lyricist, playwright, broadcaster and historian.

Dafoe, born in Winnipeg in July 1936, began his career working as a theatre actor before he joined the Free Press in the mid-1950s, where he first worked as a copy boy. He soon moved on to reporting and writing columns and editorials for the newspaper.

He was predeceased by his wife of 53 years, Nancy, in 2013. They met in London in 1959, where she was working as a nurse, away from her native Ireland. They married in Winnipeg in 1960, where they had son Christopher, daughter Sarah and son Alex, before later moving west.

Alex remembers his father as the most well-read person he had ever met.

“He had hundreds and hundreds of books — he never got rid of any books. He inherited a lot of books from my great-grandfather, J.W. Dafoe and collected his own,” said Alex, speaking by phone from Vancouver, where he sat at his great grandfather’s desk.

“He was always poking around in bookshops in whatever city he might be visiting… (He was) the person that my sister, my brother and I went to for any questions we had about history or art or music or theatre. He seemed to know everything.”

He was kind and gentle, sharp-witted and cheeky, said Alex, with interesting and fun stories to tell. He could be counted on to be in a good mood and to look at things positively.

“He was a really great father and very supportive in our endeavours. My brother and I both became journalists,” said Alex.

“(I) decided to move on to acting. And when I did that, my father was just as enthusiastic and as encouraging as he was when I announced that I was going to journalism school. Same with my sister, very, very supportive of her choice to be a writer and an actor as well.”

Dafoe’s journalism career spanned decades across several publications in Winnipeg and Vancouver.

The family moved west in the late 1960s, where Dafoe took a job as a columnist, feature writer and drama critic at the Vancouver Sun. There, he’s remembered in the theatre community, largely, as a fair-minded opinion writer.

“He was pretty well loved by the local theater community here because of his fairly balanced and thoughtful reviews,” said Alex.

“He did get some hate mail once in a while, but mostly it was just, thank you for your previous support, but we don’t want you coming to our plays anymore.”

The family returned to Winnipeg in the early 1980s, where Dafoe again wrote columns in the weekend Free Press.

In around 1985, Dafoe landed the position of editor of The Beaver magazine, which has since been renamed Canada’s History, a role he held until his retirement in 1997.

“That became his passion for a number of years, Canadian history,” said Alex.

Circulation increased significantly during his tenure at the helm of the magazine, as he aimed to make the magazine’s focus broader.

“It was known as the magazine of the north up until he took over, and then he sort of adapted the title to exploring Canada’s history and broadened the focus of the magazine quite a bit,” said Alex.

“It was in a lot of ways his dream job. He read The Beaver when he was a kid and he jumped at the opportunity to be the editor.”

After Dafoe’s retirement, and a move with Nancy back to Vancouver to be with their children and grandchildren, he continued to write columns for some years in the Free Press and authored several books. The couple travelled extensively, often returning to Nancy’s home in Ireland, and frequently to London, where they enjoyed the arts.

His last book, published in 2014, was In Search of Canada: The Early Years of John Wesley Dafoe, a biography of his grandfather, who led the Free Press from 1901 until his death in 1944 and was an influential figure nationally and internationally.

J.W. purchased the family cottage at Ponemah Beach on Lake Winnipeg, more than a century ago. It’s there, on the cottage’s front veranda, where Dafoe’s son Alex now often pictures him, since his death.

“That was one of his favourite places in the world … my niece … when she was a little girl, she asked him if he thought the cottage was haunted — the cottage was bought by J.W. back in 1911, every member of my family stayed there — and in a lot of ways, it’s full of memories, it’s full of ghosts of people who spent time there and our family members who are gone,” said Alex.

“He said, I hope so. And then he explained to her that if it was haunted, it would be haunted by the people we love, the people who are gone still.”

erik.pindera@winnipegfreepress.com