Houston, Clarence Stuart (1927-)

Stuart Houston, 1983.

University of Saskatchewan Archives A-7248

Stuart Houston (OC, SOM, DLitt, DCnL, MD, FRCPC), son of Drs. Clarence J. and Sigga Houston, was born in Williston, North Dakota on September 26, 1927, and grew up in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. After obtaining an MD from the University of Manitoba in 1951, he practiced medicine with his parents from 1951 to 1960. Stuart married Mary Belcher in 1951, and they have four children. Moving to Saskatoon in 1960, he began training in Diagnostic Radiology. After graduating with a FRCPC in 1964, he joined the University of Saskatchewan and became Head of Radiology from 1982 to 1987, before retiring in 1996. His published works in medicine and the history of medicine include five books, thirteen book chapters and sixty-six scientific articles, as well as numerous book reviews, abstracts and editorials.

In addition to medicine, Houston has been involved in ornithology and natural history since his early teens. Beginning as a bander of ducks for Ducks Unlimited, he is now recognized as one of the leading authorities on Birds in Canada. He has published six books, thirty-three book chapters, 251 original papers, 123 book reviews, and numerous abstracts and editorials in this field. He and his wife Mary have banded over 126,000 individuals of 206 species, with 3,191 recoveries - the largest list for a private bander in North America. He has served in several capacities in the American Ornithologists' Union, of which he was named a Fellow in 1989.

Stuart Houston is a recognized authority on the Franklin expeditions, on the factor-naturalists of the Hudson's Bay Company, and on the medical History of Saskatchewan. The first of three books on the Franklin expedition, To the Arctic by Canoe, 1819-1821, The Journals and Paintings of Robert Hood, was published in 1974; his latest books are Steps on the Road to Medicare (2002) and Eighteenth-Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay (2003) (with M. Houston and T. Ball). Houston's activities have won him a variety of awards, including honorary doctorates for Literature, the Roland Michener Conservation Award from the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and the Order of Canada.

J. Frank Roy