Dunbar, Robert Henry

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Morris Mott, “DUNBAR, ROBERT H.,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dunbar_robert_henry_16E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Bartender, hotel clerk and owner, and athlete; b. 26 Oct. 1859 in Abercrombie, N.S., son of Alexander Dunbar and Margaret Fraser; m. 23 Jan. 1889, in Winnipeg, Nora Gatenby West (d. 1941) of Lucknow, Ont., and they had two daughters and one son; d. 5 June 1937 in Eveleth, Minn.
    • Robert Henry (Bob) Dunbar was the finest curler of his time, the first of a long line of curling superstars from Winnipeg. He developed tactics and techniques that would have a permanent impact on the sport. Born in Nova Scotia, he moved to Winnipeg as a young man. He may have been there as early as 1878, but city directories have no entry for him until 1882. At that time he was a bartender. Until he left Winnipeg in 1900, he worked as a bartender or hotel clerk, with the exception of a few years during which he was a hotel proprietor.
    • Dunbar became a prominent athlete in the mid 1880s. Even by late-19th-century standards he was not a big man; he stood just 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed 150 pounds. However, he was accomplished in a variety of sports, including boxing, cycling, speed skating, billiards, and several track-and-field events, such as the long jump, shot put, distance races, and sprints
    • The sport in which Dunbar excelled was curling. He did not take up the game until late in the 1880s. Dunbar participated in the very first bonspiel of 1889, but he began to skip his own rink (direct his own team) only in 1893. By 1900 his teams had won eight important events, including the Grand Aggregate (the overall championship) twice. In addition, he had won four of the bonspiel’s Grand Points Competitions. A points event, a regular part of bonspiels until the mid 1910s, was a contest for individuals in which participants received a score for each of four attempts at nine different types of shots, such as draws (shots designed to come to rest in the house, or scoring area) and guards (shots intended to stop in front of the house to protect stones in the scoring area). The winner of the points competition was considered the top individual shotmaker.
    • Late in 1900 Dunbar left for Minnesota and settled in St Paul. He moved there at the request of members of the St Paul Curling Club, who wanted him to instruct other curlers and to take teams to bonspiels outside the city. He made his living as a bartender. Towards the end of 1919 he accepted an invitation to relocate to Eveleth to curl in the local club and to manage a new curling and recreation facility. He would reside there for the rest of his life.
    • The secret to Dunbar’s curling success was his early adoption of a hitting, or knockout, style of play. This approach was different from that which prevailed in the curling world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the quiet-weight, draw style left many rocks in play. Essentially, he was the first curler to take advantage of the keen (fast), true ice available in Winnipeg and most parts of the Canadian prairies. Dunbar could execute all the standard shots, but he was remarkable at takeouts (striking an opponent’s stone to remove it from play).
    • The hitting game that Dunbar developed placed a premium on accuracy, and to facilitate it he adopted an early form of the shoulders-square-to-the-target, sliding delivery that all good curlers now use. Dunbar was not the first to employ a face-the-target stance: in sketches and paintings, one can find earlier curlers in this pose. When Dunbar began to curl, however, most of his contemporaries delivered the stone from the shoulders-sideways-to-the-target stance that had evolved owing to the use of portable foot grips and poorly constructed hacks (footholds). Dunbar learned that he was much more accurate if he faced the direction of his shot. Because he wanted to throw hitting weight (throw fast), he needed thrust from his pushing leg, so he bent his legs more and his waist less than other curlers.
  • Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=11529
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/262808296/robert-henry-dunbar