Diamond Jenness - Biography

Biography

He graduated from Victoria University College of New Zealand (B.A. 1907; M.A. 1908), and Balliol College, Oxford University (Diploma in Anthropology, 1910; B.A. 1911; M.A. 1916). From 1911 to 1912 he was Oxford Scholar in eastern Papua-New Guinea, studying a little-known group of aboriginal people. He then served as an ethnologist with the Canadian Arctic Expedition from 1913 to 1916 under the leadership of both Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Dr. Rudolph M. Anderson. His detailed studies of the Copper Inuit around Coronation Gulf, and of other Arctic native people, helped establish him. Although most of his time thereafter was devoted to Indian studies (and administrative duties), he soon identified two very important prehistoric Eskimo cultures: the Dorset in Canada (in 1925) and the Old Bering Sea culture in Alaska (in 1926), for which he later was named "Father of Eskimo Archaeology."

In 1926, Jenness succeeded Canada's first Chief Anthropologist, Dr. Edward Sapir, as Chief of Anthropology at the National Museum of Canada, a position he retained until his retirement in 1948. During the intervening years, although hampered by the Great Depression and World War II, he sought to expand the National Museum's exhibits, anthropological collections, and reputation, as well as to improve the recognition, understanding, and living conditions of Canada's native peoples.

In 1941, eager to contribute to the war effort, he was seconded to the Royal Canadian Air Force, where he served until 1944 as civilian Deputy Director of Special Intelligence. In 1944 he was made Chief of a newly established Inter-Services Topographic Department in the Canadian Department of National Defence, the non-military section of which in 1947 became the Geographic Bureau and subsequently the Geographic Branch in the Department of Mines and Resources. He retired in April 1948.

Between 1920 and 1970, Jenness authored more than 100 works on Canada's Inuit and First Nations people. Chief among these are his scholarly government report, "Life of the Copper Eskimos" (published 1922), his ever-popular account of two years with the Copper Inuit, "The People of the Twilight" (published 1928), his definitive and durable "The Indians of Canada" (published 1932 and now in its seventh edition), and four scholarly reports on Eskimo Administration in Alaska, Canada, Labrador, and Greenland, plus a fifth report providing an analysis and overview of the four government systems (published between 1962 and 1968). He also published a popular account of the one year (1913 to 1914) he spent among the Inupiat of Northern Alaska, "Dawn in Arctic Alaska" (published 1957 and 1985).

In 1962, Jenness was awarded the Massey Medal by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and in 1968 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. Between 1935 and 1968, he was awarded five honorary doctorate degrees. In 1978 the Canadian Government named the middle peninsula on the west coast of Victoria Island for him, and in 2004 his name was used for a rock examined by the Mars exploration rover Opportunity.

Nansi Swayze published a brief popular account about Jenness' life in The Man Hunters (1960). Barnett Richling has, since 1989, published several scholarly articles on various aspects of Jenness' life. "In Twilight and in Dawn: A Biography of Diamond Jenness" written by Barnett Richling was published in 2012 by McGill-Queen's University Press.