Hugh Aylmer Dempsey, CM (November 7, 1929 - May 24, 2022)[1] was a Canadian historian, an author and the Chief Curator Emeritus of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta.
[3][4] Dempsey is credited with combining the oral history of native peoples with scholarly records to produce historical writing with a broad popular appeal.
On October 15, 1975 Dempsey was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to the preservation of the cultural and development of interest in the history of the Plains Indians.
His parents were English war bride Lily Louise Sharp and farmer (former Canadian soldier) Otto Lionel Dempsey.
[6] In 1951 Dempsey began more than 40 years of correspondence and friendship with American ethnohistorian John Canfield Ewers when the two met while doing field research on the Blackfoot reservation in Montana.