[1] Born in Whitewood, Saskatchewan,[2] Armstrong moved to Whitehorse to work as a butcher for the Burns Meat Packing Company.
[3] When he was first elected mayor, Whitehorse was still a small frontier town with little municipal infrastructure and no city hall; the council rented meeting rooms from various commercial companies until taking over a vacated Canadian Army building.
[1] In 1954, Armstrong left his job with the Burns Company to launch Yukon Sales, a wholesaler which imported and transported commercial goods not widely available in the territory.
[1] In his capacity as mayor, in the same year he launched the most ambitious program of his term, winning a plebiscite on a $10 per month municipal tax to fund the construction of the city's water and sewer systems.
[2] The day after his death, statements of tribute were delivered in the Legislative Assembly of Yukon by MLAs Doug Phillips and Tony Penikett.