John Anderson-Thomson

John Anderson-Thomson was born in Glengairn, Scotland and enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps. at 16 during World War I. In 1920, he went to Canada, working as a sheep farmer in Saskatchewan. In 1926, Anderson-Thomson returned to Scotland, meeting and marrying Janet Grant of Braemer Village. They moved back to the Prairies in 1932, with Anderson-Thomson graduating from the University of Saskatchewan in 1936 as a Geological Engineer. In 1942, he joined the RCAF and was posted to Rivers, Manitoba, as a navigation instructor until 1944. John and Janet moved to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in 1944. Anderson-Thomson worked as a Dominion Land Surveyor, selecting the route for the Mackenzie Highway between Yellowknife and Hay River, as well as the locations of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) stations, accompanied more often than not by Janet, who contributed to the travels by sketch mapping as they went. He was also commissioned as the Captain and Commanding Officer of No. 7 Company of the Canadian Rangers based out of Yellowknife, as well as the Justice of the Peace and acting Magistrate. He was the leader of the No. 7 Rangers in Operation Bulldog III. Anderson-Thomson died in 1985.