Phil Lind - Right Hand Man: How Phil Lind Steered the Genius of Ted Rogers, Canada?s Foremost Entrepreneur

F or 40 years, PHIL LIND was the right-hand man to Ted Rogers, the late CEO of the massive Canadian communications company. Lind provided the strategic compass to channel Rogers entrepreneurial brilliance and shape a powerful organization with vast holdings wireless, cable, telephone, Internet, and media assets along with the Toronto Blue Jays and a significant stake in Torontos other professional sports teams. Lind has been inducted into the Order of Canada, and the U.S. Cable Hall of Fame for his role in expanding Rogers into the United States. Phil is also a collector of contemporary art, including such Vancouver superstars as Jeff Wall and Rodney Graham, and is a keen fisherman.

ROBERT BREHL, an award-winning journalist formerly at the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, now operates his own consulting firm, abc2 communications inc. He is the co-author of best-selling books Relentless: The True Story of the Man Behind Rogers Communications and Hurricane Hazel: A Life with Purpose, and author of other books, including the bestseller The Best of Milt Dunnell.

I met the man, likely several times, but I have no memories of him. Still, his influence on my life is immeasurable and very real, with the greatest impact being on my familys fortunes. His name was John Grieve Lind, also known as Johnny Lind, and he was my grandfather.

He died from a stroke in 1947, just weeks before my fourth birthday. I cant recall ever sitting on his lap or walking to the park in St. Marys, Ontario, a park he paid to have refurbished during the Great Depression so that he could create jobs and help those townspeople who were struggling to find work. He was that kind of man. In fact, he opened a line of credit with the local St. Marys grocer, telling him to use it for anyone who couldnt pay for their food.

He was an adventurer with a heart of gold who made a small fortune by risking much and working even harder during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. At the turn of the twentieth century, he took his gold and money with him and returned to Ontario, where he bought homes for all his unmarried sisters. He invested in a business that would eventually become St. Marys Cement, and that would grow into what would be the largest independent cement company in Canada for many years. He took pride in knowing the name of virtually every employee who worked for him at the plant, treated all with respect, and did not lay off a single person during the deepest, darkest days of the Depression.

Throughout my life Ive revelled in his accomplishments; as a young boy, I remember listening with rapt attention to stories passed down from my father, Jed, my mother, Susie (who admired him greatly and was more than just a daughter-in-law to him), and other relatives. I still get a little misty-eyed recalling Mother describing his funeral. Virtually the entire town of St. Marys was there, along with many other people from nearby towns and cities, even places like Toronto, where he was known in some circles. But the image that stuck with me was her description of the hundreds of workers, many in overalls covered with cement dust, weeping while paying their last respects before returning to the factory to finish their shifts.

In my eyes, and for many others, John Grieve Lind was a giant of a man. He was such a towering figure in southwestern Ontario that the St. Marys Journal ran his obituary on the front page, above the fold. It began: St. Marys lost its most prominent and colourful citizen over the week-end when death came to John Grieve Lind, a farmers son, bridge builder for the pioneer railroad in Montana, Sour Dough of the Klondike, cement company president, fishing enthusiast, amateur gardener and benevolent townsman.

Because of him, Ive compiled one of the largest private collections of books about and artifacts from the Klondike Gold Rush. My collection includes thousands of photographs, more than a thousand books on the subject published from 1896 to 1905, and hundreds of original cheques, posters, and other memorabilia. After my death, the entire collection will be given to a museum in British Columbia. I would have liked to donate it to Dawson City, but facilities capable of preserving such rare artifacts arent available there.

My grandfather inspired me, and he still does. The grit and sheer determination of the man! In the North he lived in unbearable conditions, especially during the early years before Dawson Citys population exploded and goods and services became available. As he wrote some years after leaving the North, Of all the gruelling hardships, probably, there is nothing that will sap your energy as freighting [provisions] with the temperature constantly from 45 to 65 degrees below zero time did appear endless, the cold intense.

The winters were long and hard. They lived in cabins theyd built themselves with no glass for windows, just narrow slits they tried to plug with glass bottles. The cold blew in relentlessly; the only heat came from burning wood. In todays luxury-filled world, its difficult to imagine such conditions. For visionary dreamers like my grandfather, it was a life filled with unbelievable hardships: months of darkness, disease, isolation, and monotony. It could be awful but it could also be wonderful, such is the lure of gold.

It was first discovered in August 1896 on Bonanza Creek near Dawson City, but the world didnt hear of it until 1897. Word spread like wildfire, with a stampede of more than 100,000 people from all over the globe descending upon the Klondike, many of whom werent prepared for its harsh conditions.

And if theres one story that epitomizes Johnny Lind, it would be the one about the Christmas Eve baby. Im so proud of my grandfather for his role in saving that newborn babys life on December 24, 1897.

The story is recorded in a little-known book published in 1938 called I Was There: A Book of Reminiscences by Edith Tyrrell, a rather extraordinary woman whose husband holds an interesting place in Canadian history, too. Joseph Burr Tyrrell was a geologist, cartographer, and mining consultant who in 1884 was the first to discover dinosaur bones and coal in Albertas Badlands. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, is named in his honour. In retirement, he owned and operated a huge apple orchard in Scarborough on the land now home to the Toronto Zoo. Edith Tyrrell, founder and first president of the Womens Association of the Mining Industry of Canada, shared her husbands interest in geology. Twice she went to the Yukon during the gold rush, and it was on her first visit that she heard of this Christmas story involving my grandfather.

According to Edith Tyrrell, on Christmas Eve 1897 three menJohnny Lind, Skiff Mitchell, and Bill Wilkinsontravelled 25 kilometres from their cabin on Eldorado Creek to Dawson City for supplies. Upon their return their dogs were weary, having hauled the heavily laden sleds, so they took a short breather. My grandfather noticed a faint light coming from what he thought was a deserted cabin. They went to investigate, and as they got closer they could hear a moaning sound.

Inside, they discovered a dying young woman who had recently given birth to a baby girl. They started a fire in the stove and fetched a bottle of brandy from their supplies. They tried to give the mother a teaspoon of it, but she was past swallowing, and as they looked she gave a last quivering sigh and was gone, Tyrrell writes.