R<scp>obert</scp> J<scp>ohn</scp> G<scp>ibson</scp>

John Gibson was born into an Anglo-Irish military family in India. With the onset of WWII, he was sent back to England where he attended St. Peter's public school in York. He went on to Trinity College, Dublin, where it was expected he would study medicine. But he wanted to study fisheries, an impossibility in Ireland at the time, so in 1958 he crossed the ocean and landed at the Atlantic Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. After obtaining a master's at the University of Western Ontario (1965), he worked in Manitoba for five years before completing a Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo (1973). The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution hired Gibson to conduct salmon research and direct their freshwater field station at the mouth of the Matamek River in Quebec. He left Woods Hole in 1978 and in 1980 became a senior research scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in St John's, Newfoundland. Wherever Gibson went, a stream tank followed. He built one on the bank of the Matamek River beside one of the falls, one in a lab at Woods Hole, and then one at DFO in St John's. Gibson was an excellent writer who communicated his extensive knowledge of freshwater ecosystems both in the language of science for internationally refereed scientific journals and in clear popular language for local media, nature magazines, and similar national publications. He knew the literature backwards and forwards, and readily offered his aid and cooperation to fellow scientists. He published more than 90 research papers, book chapters, and reports over the course of his 52-year professional career. Gibson was at heart a naturalist. His greatest focus was on fish behavior, but really he was interested in everything that went on in lakes and streams, often citing the influence of his encounters with H.B.N. Hynes at Waterloo. Gibson appreciated science in the broadest sense. He invited diverse investigators to Matamek, where he built a vibrant summer community of young scientists. He continued as a committed and inspiring mentor at Memorial University, where he held an appointment as adjunct professor. Every student received both exceptional training and enduring friendship, and without exception, Gibson was able to engender a strong understanding of the importance of precise and comprehensive field observations. At the same time, he retained a wonderful and at times devilish sense of humor, and loved recounting his own misadventures in the field and fumbling encounters with bureaucrats. Gibson's love of the natural world made him a tenacious advocate for the protection of freshwater ecosystems in their entirety, a campaign he felt was important both for present and future generations. He brought the city rivers to life in St John's, spearheading a successful restoration effort and leading regular natural history walks. Gibson was a catalyst in creating effective partnerships between citizens and government. Naturalist, conservationist, mentor. Angler, rower, skier. Teacher, colleague, friend. That was John Gibson.

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