Paul F. Bruggemann Retires from Editorship
Authors: MacDonald Stewart D. 
Published: March 2014

The contributors and readers of Arctic will join in wishing Mr. Paul F. Bruggemann every enjoyment of the leisure that has become his on his retirement from the editorship. He kept the standard high, and there are few contributors who do not feel a sense of debt for the careful attention paid to their work. Readers have been grateful for the wide range of interests to which he catered. He took the job on at an age when most scholars have been compulsively retired, and he has done work of a quality which gives the lie direct to the popular assumption that a man's usefulness ends when he reaches sixty-five. Mr. Bruggemann was born on 28 February 1890 at Gut Mindenerwald, Gemeinde Hille, Westphalia, Germany. He received his formal education in Germany, including a degree in engineering and in this field was captivated by the new world of airplanes and flight. By the time he was ten years old he was very much aware of the world around him and his desire to know it better led him along many paths in natural history. ... In the autumn of 1926 Mr. Bruggemann came to Canada and settled at Lloydminster, Alberta, where he established a small business repairing farm machinery. In his spare time he studied the natural history and ecology of the area around him and made a collection of Lepidoptera. Always an excellent field observer and an intelligent and selective collector, he gathered during the Forties several thousand beautifully prepared specimens of great scientific interest. Several specimens he recognized as being extremely rare. His identifications of Dodia albertae Dyar, Lycea rachelae Hlst., and Boloria frigga saga (Staudinger) were confirmed by authorities in the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa, and the extensive correspondence which followed resulted in the offer of a field position on the newly established Northern Insect Survey to collect insects in the Yukon during the summer of 1949. The result of his work was a large collection of perfectly prepared and much needed series of insects, and the offer of a full time position with the Department. The following year the Survey was continued at Repulse Bay. This time Mr. Bruggemann collected plants as well as insects and contributed new records and distributional data for Melville Peninsula. In 1951, he went to northern Ellesmere Island thus realizing one of his earliest ambitions. Here it was my good fortune to have spent that season and several others with him in the high arctic. He was always the best of companions and this association is the most cherished of my arctic experiences. At Alert, carrying everything for survival with us, we travelled extensively on foot covering much of the area traversed by Fielden. Wherever we went he collected and added several extensions of range for both plants and insects. In 1952, Survey work was continued at Mould Bay, Prince Patrick Island, and in 1953 and 1954 at Eureka, Ellesmere Island, where he undertook as well a two year survey of musk ox for the Canadian wildlife Service. Among the most notable of his plant discoveries was Geum rossii found at Eureka, the second record for the Canadian arctic. Previously it had been known only from eastern Melville Island. Puccinellia bruggemanni, a grass endemic to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, was named in recognition of its collector. Space does not permit description of the extent of his collections, or of his detailed and meticulously prepared field notes and records on insects, plants, birds and mammals of the arctic regions he studied. On returning to Ottawa, Mr. Bruggemann spent some time photographing type specimens of Lepidoptera for the International Union of Biological Sciences. It was in October, 1956, that he retired from government work to accept the post of Editor of Arctic. He moved to the Montreal Office of the Institute on 1 May, 1958, where he remained until his retirement on 1 July, 1964. ...