For this expedition, the Canadian government hired Johan Hjort, the great Norwegian fisheries biologist who was at that time the leading scientist in the field, to come to Canada and investigate the conditions of the herring in the offshore waters.
Hjort introduced to Canada the latest developments in the nascent science of fisheries biology and in Scandinavian dynamic oceanography, both of which influenced Huntsman profoundly, changing his research focus from the study of ascidian taxonomy and evolutionary questions to problems of fisheries science.
[4] From 1924 to 1928 Huntsman was also Director of the Fisheries Experimental Station in Halifax, while continuing his directorship at St. Andrews and his teaching at the University of Toronto.
[4] Huntsman also helped in 1921 to found, and was secretary to, the North American Council on Fisheries Research, which began US, Canadian, French, and British (Newfoundland) collaboration on fisheries and oceanographic research in imitation of the European International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.
His work brought him into contact with major figures in marine science of that era, including Henry Bryant Bigelow, who became the first director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a close friend of Huntsman's; Michael Graham who was later (after WWII) the second director of the Fisheries Laboratory at Lowestoft, England; and William F. Thompson, who was a pioneer of fish population analysis and was director of the International Fisheries Commission (later the International Pacific Halibut Commission) and the pre-eminent American scientist in the field.
In 2000, Canada Post issued a 46 cent postage stamp in his honour with the title "Dr. Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman: The Fisherman's Friend".