Don Hunter grew up in Cumbria, England, attended Workington Grammar School and did his two-years national service in the army before training as a teacher at Chester. He taught high school in England and in British Columbia, where he gained his B.Ed, at the University of B.C., before joining the Vancouver Province daily newspaper as a reporter and feature writer and eventually senior columnist. See more at www.donhunter.ca

In 1972, Don Hunter co-wrote Swiss-born René Dahinden's summary of his 20 years of research into the humanoid Sasquatch creature for Sasquatch/Bigfoot. René Dahinden's search for evidence of the Sasquatch has been continued by a science teacher in Oregon, Thom Powell, who published The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon (Hancock, 2003). Other "Sasquatch" authors from the same publishing house include Dr. Grover S. Krantz, Thomas Steenburg, Robert Alley, John's Green, Christopher L. Murphy, Peter Byrne and Dmitri Bayanov.

Don Hunter compiled his fictional columns in The Province about life in a Gulf Islands community for Spinner's Inlet, shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour.

Hunter's novel Incident at Willow Creek (NeWest, 2009) concerns an Alberta prisoner of war camp for German detainees. "After her mother's death, Liz Thomas inherits the key to a bank lockbox containing the official government documents of Camp 10, a prisoner-of-war camp located in the sleepy town of Willow Creek, AB during World War II. As Liz desperately attempts to piece together reports on a life she never knew her mother had, she discovers a family secret so tragic that it was kept under lock-and-key for over sixty years of Canadian history."

Hunter scripted most of the 1986 CBC Television movie "9B" and the network drama mini-series "9B" of January/February 1989 (five one-hour shows) based on an original story concerning a year teaching in B.C.'s north country. He grew up near the English Lake District, did his two-years national service in the British Army's 16th Independent Parachute Brigade, and taught high school in England and in British Columbia before joining the Vancouver Province newspaper as a reporter and feature writer and eventually senior columnist. He has contributed to dozens of magazines including Maclean's and Reader's Digest. He has his teacher's certificate from UBC and he has served as President of Local 115 The Newspaper Guild (1976-1977).

His political thriller, Cooper and The Queen (Mirador, 2011) opens with reports that the Queen is to abdicate, that the throne will go to her grandson William and his bride Kate Middleton, and that the Queen then will spend much of her future in her favourite Commonwealth country - Canada. The narrative then turns back to events of 1983, during the North American royal tour, scheduled to end in Vancouver where the Queen would announce plans for the Expo 86 World Fair.

A rogue Irish Republican Army assassin Sean Dooley plans to assassinate the Queen on the final day of the royal tour (a tour that Don Hunter covered as a reporter with The Province newspaper.). Coincidentally Sgt. Matt Cooper of the Vancouver Police Department is removed from his position as head of the Emergency Response Team and appointed bodyguard to a woman who does theatre impersonations of HRH. The story moves from Vancouver Island to Ottawa, the Caribbean, Ulster, California, Galiano Island, and Vancouver, to its dramatic climax at the Hotel Vancouver.

Don Hunter and his wife June have two daughters, and they live in Fort Langley, B.C.

CITY/TOWN: Fort Langley

DATE OF BIRTH: October 2, 1937

PLACE OF BIRTH: Asby, Cumbria, England

ARRIVAL IN CANADA: August 7 1961

ANCESTRAL BACKGROUND: Coal miners.

EMPLOYMENT OTHER THAN WRITING: Teacher (B.Ed. UBC). Cab driver. Longshoreman. Salesman. Labourer. Journalist. Early-retired from The Province daily newspaper in Vancouver after 28-year career as reporter/editor/columnist.

BOOKS:

Return to Spinners Inlet (TouchWood Editions) 2019 $22.00 9781771513081
See ORMSBY REVIEW for a review of the above title

Cooper and The Queen (Somerset: Mirador, 2011). 978-1-908200-26-6

Incident at Willow Creek (NeWest, 2009). 978-1-897126-41-7

Spinner's Inlet (Horsdal and Schubart, 1989). Short story collection short-listed for the 1990 Leacock Medal for Humour

Sasquatch/Bigfoot (McClelland & Stewart, 1973; Signet Books, 1975; McClelland & Stewart, revised edition, 1993)

[BCBW 2020] "Humour" "Fiction"