John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir - Legacy

Legacy

In his last years, Buchan, amongst other works, wrote an autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, as well as works on the history and his views of Canada. He and Baroness Tweedsmuir together established the first proper library at Rideau Hall, and, with his wife's encouragement, Buchan founded the Governor General's Literary Awards, which remain Canada's premier award for literature.

Buchan's 100 works include nearly thirty novels, seven collections of short stories, and biographies of Sir Walter Scott, Caesar Augustus, and Oliver Cromwell. Buchan was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of the Marquess of Montrose, but the most famous of his books were the spy thrillers, and it is for these that he is now best remembered. The "last Buchan" (as Graham Greene entitled his appreciative review) was the 1941 novel Sick Heart River (American title: Mountain Meadow), in which a dying protagonist confronts the questions of the meaning of life in the Canadian wilderness. The insightful quotation, "It's a great life, if you don't weaken," is famously attributed to Buchan, as is, "No great cause is ever lost or won, The battle must always be renewed, And the creed must always be restated."

Tweedsmuir Provincial Park in British Columbia, now divided into Tweedsmuir South Provincial Park and Tweedsmuir North Provincial Park and Protected Area, was created in 1938 to commemorate Buchan's 1937 visit to the Rainbow Range and other nearby areas by horseback and floatplane. In the foreword to a booklet published to commemorate his visit, he wrote, "I have now travelled over most of Canada and have seen many wonderful things, but I have seen nothing more beautiful and more wonderful than the great park which British Columbia has done me the honour to call by my name".