Raymond Donovan Wood (1902-1964)

• Published in: ARCTIC
• Main Author: Porsild, A.E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Arctic Institute of North America 1965
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Greenland; Arctic Institute of North America; The Arctic Institute; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic3470; http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/viewFile/3470/3445

Raymond Donovan Wood, a practising attorney in Mount Kisco, N.Y. for 32 years, and recently retired to Salt Lake City, Utah, died suddenly 30 November, 1964. Raymond Wood was born on 17 January, 1902 in Iowa, and came to New York in 1925. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, he received his M.A. at Northwestern University in Chicago, and became Juris Doctor from New York University following which he completed two years of post graduate work at Columbia University. He was an Associate Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, and a Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America. His principal hobby and recreation was photography, especially of wildflowers. For many years he spent whatever time he could spare from his law practice photographing rare wild flowers in the mountains of the northeastern States. It was natural, therefore, that later in search of new material he turned to the Arctic, and that for the planning of future field seasons he should come to the National Museum of Canada to acquaint himself with arctic plants and to seek the advice of its botanical staff in planning his itineraries. Between 1956 and 1962, Raymond Wood personally financed extended field trips to the American Arctic, from West Greenland to Alaska for the purpose of making colour photographs of arctic flowers. On all his expeditions Raymond Wood was accompanied by his wife Mildred whom he always acknowledged as the botanist of the "team", whereas he did "only" the photography and, at the end of the season, the processing of the hundreds of rolls of colour and black and white film that invariably resulted from his summer's activity. Meticulous and painstaking about all they did, the Woods always collected voucher specimens of the wild flowers they photographed. These specimens they presented to the National Herbarium of Canada at Ottawa together with one of the two or three original transparencies made of each plant object. During four summers in the Canadian Arctic, one in West Greenland, and two in Alaska, ...