Who Am I? Dan Ferguson I was born in Toronto in 1946. I have 2 brothers and one sister. My Dad was a teacher and my mother a dietitian. When I was 5 Dad bought a hardware store in Fergus where I went to school. In 1964 we moved to Scarborough where my Dad taught merchandising and then 2 years later he got back into the Hardware business when he bought a store in the Frederick Street Plaza. Much of my time was spent working in the store and I learned a lot about public relations. I went to WLU and then did postgraduate work in Journalism at UWO. After I graduated, I worked for newspapers in Sturgeon Falls, ON; Grand Prairie, AB ; Huntingdon, QU and Stratford, ON. GO TO PAGE 1 | I went back to the hardware business in the early ‘70’s before getting a job as information officer with the Government of the Northwest Territories in Yellowknife. I had many unique experiences during my time in the north – visiting a Dene village; seeing herds of reindeer on the Mackenzie delta; seeing Inuit drum dancing in Coppermine; and staying at the DEW line site in Cambridge Bay and visiting Frobisher Bay and Cape Dorset (famed for print making and soap stone carvings). I had contact with many senior government and other dignitaries, including Prince Charles. I even played Shinny hockey with Jean Chretian when he was Indian Affairs Minister. I learned the meaning of white-knuckled flying after many flights in less than ideal conditions. I found my way south in 1975, taking a job with the Saskatchewan Department of the Environment as Information Officer working on the Qu’Appelle Implementation Agreement, a federal/provincial program to improve the quality of the Qu’Appelle river system. At the end of this 10 year project, I joined the federal department of Energy, Mines and Resources’ (EMR) office in Saskatoon to promote energy conservation. In less than 2 years I was transferred back to Yellowknife! I had a different perspective on the north as my work related to oil and gas exploration. I was able to see drilling operations in very remote and cold locations. | During this time I had contact with Jean Chretian again when he was Energy Minister. I was filling in at the Calgary Office for a couple of weeks. A summer student and I were looking after him and we had a couple of hours to kill. Chretian asked to see where the `rich oil guys live``. Fortunately the summer student knew where they lived! In 1984 I moved to Ottawa with EMR and then after 1 1/2 years I moved to the EMR office in St. John`s, NF as Public Relations Manager. I continued with promoting energy conservation, media relations and reporting on mining and oil and gas developments in the province. I was involved when the Hibernia negotiations were taking place. When Prime Minister Brian Mulroney came to make the announcement, I really got to see the intricate details of a Prime Ministerial visit. I had one more trip to the north when Ottawa asked me to accompany Marcel Masse on a tour of the Beaufort Sea and the North Slope of Alaska. We visited Tuktoyuktuk, Holman Island, Sachs Harbour, Cambridge Bay and Coppermine. I recall seeing caribou migrating, pingoes (ice hills), herds of muskox, Masse fishing for Grayling and the Smoking Hills on the Arctic Coast near Paulkatuk - coal seams have been smoldering for hundreds of years. I left the federal government in 1993 and moved back to Waterloo. I’ve done some freelance writing for hardware magazines while settling into retirement. |