Doug Urquhart

Doug Urquhart was born in Scarborough, Ontario. He completed a Master's in biology from the University of New Hampshire and then he and wife Judy moved to Yellowknife where Urquhart was employed by the Game Management Office. He spent time on Banks Island studying the impact of seismic activity on fox trapping. While living in Fort Smith where Judy was a teacher, Urquhart, working at a desk as a wildlife officer helping trappers, decided to move into the bush and out of the office. They moved to an area near Atlin where they lived for the next two and a half years, building a cabin and working a trapline with nine dogs. Trouble with a neighbour caused the couple to travel the world for two and a half years. After another stint in Yellowknife, they returned to Atlin in 1980. Urquhart was drawing cartoons for newspapers in Whitehorse and Yellowknife, and he wrote a column while working at a remote weather station near the Macmillan Pass. He created collections of cartoons on hunting, bus tours, and the Alaska Highway. He spent one year preparing the strip and establishing a set of themes and characters. Eventually he created a comic strip about Marten Fisher, his wife Rosie and their dog Skookum plus a wide range of other characters. He sent the strip to 100 newspapers and 10 accepted it. At its height, the cartoon PAWS was carried in thirty-four northern newspapers from Dutch Harbour, Alaska to Lynn Lake, Manitoba. Urquhart wrote the strip from 1983 to 2000 and then decided to quit because it was a lot of work and never that profitable. Urquhart moved to Whitehorse in 1993 and has illustrated work for entities like the Dawson Renewable Resources Council. He has been a workshop facilitator since 1988. In 1999, he organized a large workshop in Whitehorse to promote dialogue between elders and scientists.¹⁾