The Life and Times of Andrew Sidney Dawes in Canadian Post- World War II Olympic Affairs
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‘Whistler’s Father’: The Life and Times of Andrew Sidney Dawes in Canadian Post- World War II Olympic Affairs Richard W. Pound & Garth A. Paton* With the 2010 Olympic Winter Games scarcely a year away, and with the Alpine Skiing events scheduled to be staged at impressive facilities on Whistler Moun- tain, the central outdoor venue on which Vancouver’s successful bid was based, it is appropriate to examine the Canadian Olympic history that had fundamen- tal substance to what will unfold in Vancouver/Whistler in February 2010. We develop that mission through an examination of the life and Canadian Olympic times of Andrew Sidney Dawes, Canadian IOC member from 1947 to 1968. Dawes was the first to identify Whistler as a prospective Olympic skiing site. This study presents a contextual biography of Dawes and analyzes his role in contentious Canadian Olympic moments, among them, the professional/ama- teur conundrum involving both ice hockey and figure skating coincident with the 1948 Winter Games in St. Moritz, and, more germane to current Olympic affairs, an investigation of the long-festering rivalry between Calgary-Banff and British Columbia-Whistler in their respective quests to bring Olympic Winter Games to Canada. Within these collective scenarios, A. Sidney Dawes’ voice and action were of important and forceful significance. v Since its first appearance in the indifferently organized Olympic Games of 1904 (which followed poorly organized Games in Paris in 1900, an unfortunate com- bination which led to the hastily but better organized 1906 intercalated Games in Athens), Canada has been a regular participant, showing occasional sparkle in the Summer Games and considerable muscle in the Olympic Winter Games. Until the World War I the organization of sport in Canada evolved from its trappings inherited from the founding British military traditions. Following the War this tradition was slowly eroded, effecting a transition influenced greatly by geographical and cultural proximity to its southern neighbor—the United States. A central figure in this transition was Andrew Sidney Dawes, a decorated World War I officer and corporate leader from Montreal, who was first recruited into sport at the national level by the skiing federation, later by the Canadian * Richard W. Pound is Chancellor of McGill University, senior partner in the Montreal law firm Stikeman Elliot, former President of the Canadian Olympic Association, and a thirty-eight year member of the IOC. — Garth A. Paton is Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Olympika XVII (2008), pp. 41-100 41 Pound & Paton Olympic community at large, and finally by the International Olympic Commit- tee, on which he served for more than twenty years. Dawes was born in Lachine, Quebec on December 5, 1888, son of Pres- byterians James Powley Dawes and Gertrude J. Brock. The family was finan- cially well-off, thanks to his grandfather, who founded Dawes Brewery, one of the major breweries in the Montreal area.1 He would have been less than a year old when Pierre de Coubertin toured the Eastern United States, Toronto (Uni- versity of Toronto) Montreal (McGill University and l’Université de Montréal) and Quebec (Laval University) in the late summer and fall of 1889 in search of educational and sport models. This was an initiative that would culminate in the 1894 Congress at the Sorbonne in Paris and the establishment of the Inter- national Olympic Committee, of which Dawes would become a member in his fifty-ninth year. Little is known of Dawes’ early schooling, oth- er than that he attended St. Albans School and the High School of Montreal before enrolling at McGill University in the Faculty of Arts and Sci- ence, from which institution he was graduated in 1910 with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Engineering. It does seem clear that he got an early start with skiing, initially on the not par- ticularly challenging slopes of Mount Royal, ig- niting an interest in skiing that would stay with him for the rest of his life and eventually lead him to the pinnacle of international sports ad- ministration. Upon his graduation from McGill, A.S. Dawes in 1910 he worked initially as an apprentice for The Canadian Westinghouse Company. In 1913 he joined the Atlas Construction Company, one of the foremost construction companies in Eastern Canada. When World War I erupted, he joined the Royal Canadian Artillery, receiv- ing a commission as Lieutenant in the 21st Battery. He was sent overseas as part of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force (under overall British com- mand, given Canada’s constitutional status at the time). While in the trenches at Ypres, France, on 22 May 1916 he was wounded by shrapnel in the upper left arm. After hospital treatment in London,2 he was granted leave to return to Montreal to recover, following which he returned to active duty in France in October 1916. In October, too, he was awarded the Military Cross.3 On 12 April 1917, he was promoted to Temporary Captain. He was wounded a second time, again in the left arm, on 2 November 1917. He was given a field promotion to Major on 5 March 1918 and held that rank until his demobilization, sailing from Liverpool on the S.S. Lapland on 3 April 1919 and landing at Halifax, Nova Scotia a week later. 42 ‘Whistler’s Father’ Following his discharge from the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Dawes returned to Atlas Construction in 1919 and by 1925 had become its president, holding that office until 1956, when he became Chairman of its Board of Direc- tors, a position he occupied until his death in 1968. Past the age of useful combat service duringz World War II, he was, during that conflict, Director of Federal Aircraft and organized the Windsor Mills Ele- mentary Flying School in the Eastern Townships of Montreal. He was actively involved in civic affairs, serving on the Council of the Montreal Board of Trade, the Montreal Protestant School Commission, the Montreal Builders Exchange (now the Montreal Construction Association), a member of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a particularly engaged Board member of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Dawes was active in the social life of Montre- al which was then centered around clubs, espe- cially, although not exclusively, within the Eng- lish-speaking community. These included such A.S. Dawes in 1916 business dining clubs as the Mount Royal Club, St. James’s Club and the Forest and Stream Club. His sports-related clubs included Mount Bruno Country Club, the Royal Montreal Golf Club, the Montreal Indoor Tennis Club, the Montreal Flying Club, and the McGill Red Birds Ski Club. The latter club, associated in particular with McGill University, led him to further involvement in Canadian skiing and to his eventual entry into the Olympic Movement, culminating in his cooptation as a member of the International Olympic Committee. Changes in Canadian Sport The post-World War I period brought with it a dramatic growth in the develop- ment of professional sport, overlaid on the original amateur base. Initially, both amateur and professional sport proceeded in parallel tracks, with the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada (AAUC) managing both portfolios, which naturally increased its influence. But, interest in professional sports soon declined in that bifurcated form of governance, dominated as it was by leaders consumed with the concept of amateurism. Professional sports soon developed their own organiza- tions, better suited to the profit-making objectives of owners and players. With that migration, the AAUC’s importance was considerably diminished, leaving only the amateur and Olympic sports within its jurisdiction. The AAUC had its own difficulties in determining whether athletes were “amateur,” a problem that would also bedevil the IOC for decades until, in the late 1980s, a formula was found to enable each international sports federation to determine “eligibility” for the Olympic competition of its athletes.4 Ultra-conservative by inclination, 43 Pound & Paton the AAUC alienated certain of its members, some of whom withdrew in protest in 1937, including the icon Canadian sport of ice hockey, as well as lacrosse and basketball.5 Interestingly, swimming had done so as early as 1909. Thus, the seeds were sown for the eventual decline and disappearance of the AAUC. It may well be that the impetus for significant and immediate change in the Canadian Olympic governance system arose out of Canadian per- formance at the 1936 Olympics, performance that was criticized within Canada as poor.6 The Berlin Games have been generally acknowl- edged as the first to be used for overtly political purposes and were a harbinger of the growing importance of the Games on the broader world stage. Given the all but religious Canadian fervor A.S. Dawes in 1919 for ice hockey, however, it is at least just as likely that the concerns regard- ing Canadian performance at Germany’s 1936 Winter and Summer Olympic Games arose more from the embarrassing loss in the ice hockey tournament, where Canada (after winning in 1924, 1928 and 1932) managed only a bronze medal, than from a generally indifferent performance in the Summer Games, where no Canadians won gold medals.7 Participation in ice hockey was all very well, but dominant performance on the ice mattered far more to Canadians (indeed it was expected) than mere participation. The November 1936 Annual Meeting of the AAUC called for immediate steps to be taken to reorganize the Canadian Olympic Committee, “to the end that she [Canada] may be worthily represented at the Olympic Games in 1940.”8 Not much happened in the ensuing year and at the 1937 Annual Meeting the call was again made for the appointment of a special committee with the mandate: To consider the whole Olympic situation having regard to the con- stitution of the next Olympic Committee, and plans to organize the athletic forces and funds of Canada so that she may be worthily rep- resented at the 1940 Olympic Games.9 The ongoing criticisms led to the appointment in 1936 of former AAUC presi- dent and Winnipeg lawyer, James I.