John Hadley Nicanor "Jack" Hemingway was a
Canadian-American fly fisherman, conservationist
and writer.
Early life
He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the
only child of American writer Ernest Hemingway
and his first wife Hadley Richardson.
He would later gain two half-brothers, Patrick
and Gregory, from Hemingway's marriage to
Pauline Pfeiffer.
Jack was named for his mother and for Spanish
matador Nicanor Villalta y Serrés whom his
father admired.
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were his
godparents.
Nicknamed "Bumby" as a toddler "because of
his plump teddy-bear qualities", Hemingway
spent his early years in Paris and the Austrian
Alps.
College and military service
He attended the University of Montana and
Dartmouth College but did not graduate, enlisting
in the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl
Harbor in 1941.
As a French-speaking First Lieutenant with
the Office of Strategic Services, the United
States wartime intelligence agency, he worked
with the French Resistance.
He parachuted into occupied France with his
fly rod, reel and flies and was almost captured
by a German patrol while fishing after his
first mission.
In late October 1944 he was wounded and captured
by the Germans behind their lines in the Vosges
in France and held prisoner-of-war at Mosberg
Prison Camp until April 1945.
He was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the
government of France for his wartime service.
Following World War II he was stationed in
West Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
and Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
He separated from the army and transitioned
back to civilian life becoming a stockbroker
and then a fishing supplies salesman.
Marriage and family
Hemingway married Byra L. "Puck" Whittlesey
on June 25, 1949, in Paris, attended by Julia
Child and Alice B. Toklas.
The couple had three children: Joan "Muffet"
Hemingway, Margaux Hemingway and Mariel Hemingway.
Puck died in 1988.
Margaux died of a barbiturate overdose at
age 42.
Angler and conservationist
Throughout his life, Jack Hemingway was an
avid fly fisherman.
He fished "most of North America's great trout
streams" and several of the world's best salmon
rivers, such as the Lærdalselvi River in
Norway.
A long-time resident of Idaho, Hemingway lived
in Ketchum.
From 1971 to 1977 he was a commissioner on
the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.
Idaho's trout stocks increased as a result
of Hemingway's success in getting the state
to adopt a catch and release fishing law.
His work with The Nature Conservancy was instrumental
in preserving Silver Creek near Sun Valley
as one of Idaho's premier trout streams.
Writer
He helped finish A Moveable Feast—his father's
memoir of life in 1920s Paris—which was
published three years after his father's death.
Hemingway published an autobiography, Misadventures
of a Fly Fisherman: My Life With and Without
Papa, in 1986.
A second volume of autobiography was released
posthumously in 2002: A Life Worth Living:
The Adventures of a Passionate Sportsman.
Death and honors
He died on December 1, 2000, at age 77, from
complications following heart surgery, in
New York City.
In 2001, the state of Idaho designated an
annual "Jack Hemingway Conservation Day" in
his honor.
Writings
Hemingway, Jack.
Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman: My Life
With and Without Papa.
Dallas: Taylor Pub.
Co. ISBN 0-8783-3379-7
Hemingway, Jack.
A 
Life Worth Living: The Adventures of a Passionate
Sportsman.
Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press.
ISBN 1-58574-325-9
References
Bibliography
External links
"Obituary: Jack Hemingway" from The Guardian
Last Interview, at sunvalleyguide.com.
