Bruce Hutchison

Who was Bruce Hutchison?

William Bruce Hutchison, OC was a Canadian author and journalist.

Born in Prescott, Ontario, Hutchison was educated in public schools in Victoria, British Columbia. He married Dorothy Kidd McDiarmid in 1925, around the same time that he began his journalism career as a political reporter in Ottawa. He was associate editor for The Winnipeg Free Press from 1944 to 1950. Hutchison was also editor of the Victoria Daily Times from 1950 to 1963, for which he had previously worked as a high-school journalist in approximately 1918. In 1963 Hutchison was made the editorial director to The Vancouver Sun. Hutchison would write for The Vancouver Sun until his death in 1992.

He travelled extensively throughout Canada during his career, and was present at the Imperial Conference of 1937. He was widely considered one of Canada's foremost experts on politics and was known in Washington, D.C., as well as Ottawa. He wrote frequently on the subject of current affairs and politics, and also wrote short stories for The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, Cosmopolitan, The American Magazine and Liberty.

Hutchison's first book, The Unknown Country, was published in 1942. Commissioned by a U.S. publisher with the intention of making America's new wartime ally better known to the American public, The Unknown Country was also published in Canada, and enjoyed favourable reviews on both sides of the border. It went on to win the 1942 Governor General's award for creative nonfiction.