A Life on the Move
Zig - In April 1962, Toronto-born James Houston was an old Arctic hand living on Baffin Island, eating raw seal meat and worrying about his dog team. Clutching a surprise parting gift from his Inuit friends and hunting companions, he flew south to a new life.
Zag - In May 1962, he was living in mid-Manhattan (after the unfortunate Montreal incident with the US Immigration officer in the ladies' room), wearing a dinner jacket pressed by a butler, and worrying about his new role as a Designer at Steuben Glass. His passage there was eased by his powerful patron Arthur A Houghton, Jr, the head of Steuben Glass, and by Houghton's wife, his secretary, his butler and his driver.
In the following pages you'll meet a Master Designer with over one hundred valuable glass sculptures to his credit, a New England sheep farmer, a bestselling novelist, a Harlem art teacher, a Pacific salmon fisherman, a Hollywood scriptwriter, a prizewinning author of seventeen children's books, an Arctic film producer, a man who designed 'National Geographic' magazine's 100th anniversary Award (not to mention the flags of two Canadian territories), and the owner of Whistler's Mother's house.
James Houston, of course, is all of those people.
From the Arctic to Manhattan was just the first of many fascinating jumps told in this modest Canadian's account of his life on the move.
