John Henry Warkentin

Click to enlarge

John Henry Warkentin
Click to enlarge

Geographer.

Born at Lowe Farm in 1928, son of Isaak J. Warkentin and Maria Warkentin (c1899-1970), he received a Bachelors degree from the University of Manitoba in 1948. He taught science at Gilbert Plains Collegiate (1949-1951) before enrolling at the University of Toronto, from which he received a PhD degree in 1961.

He was an Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Manitoba, engaged in research on the settlement and regional geography of Western Canada until 1963, when he became an Associate Professor at York University. He served on the historical committee of the Manitoba Centennial Corporation. He taught at York until retirement as Full Professor in 1993.

He is the co-author with Richard Irwin Ruggles of the Historical Atlas of Manitoba, published in 1970 by the Manitoba Historical Society. His other books include The Western Interior of Canada: A Record of Geographical Discovery, 1612-1917 (1964), A Regional Geography of Canada: Life, Land, and Space (2000), The Mennonite Settlements of Southern Manitoba (2000), and So Vast and Various: Interpreting Canada's Regions in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2010).

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Honorary President of the Champlain Society, and an Officer of the Order of Canada (2001). He has received honorary doctorates from Brandon University (1987) and York University (2011).

His articles for the Manitoba Historical Society:

Manitoba Settlement Patterns
MHS Transactions, Series 3, 1959-60 Season

Western Canada in 1886
MHS Transactions, Series 3, 1963-64 Season

Water and Adaptive Strategies in Settling the Canadian West
MHS Transactions, Series 3, Number 28, 1971-72 Season

Sources:

Reflections of Lowe Farm, 1899-1999 by the Lowe Farm History Book Committee, page 236.

Historical Atlas of the East Reserve edited by Ernest N. Braun and Glen R. Klassen, Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, 2015, page 70.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 4 September 2022