The Gibbs of Blackburn Hamlet, a suburb of Ottawa. We are Mary, Ian, Sarah and David. Ian is the son of David Gordon Gibb and Janet Hamilton Gibb, now in Victoria, and the grandson of Robertson and Mary Gibb.

Ian was raised in Town of Mont Royal, Quebec, just a few miles from the Westmount homes of his grandparents. Mary comes from Lindsay, Ontario, a little more than an hour north east of Toronto. They met on Manitoulin Island, where Mary taught high school and Ian worked for the local newspaper. After Manitoulin, they roamed all over Northern Ontario. Their daughter Sarah must have absorbed a lot from her early outdoorsy life: she rarely passes a day without swimming, skiing, running or biking. Perhaps because he was born in nerdy Waterloo, Ontario, David spends more of his time in front of a computer screen or piano. Sarah’s other passions include meeting new people, especially from other cultures. As a child, she agreed to immersions in Spain and Quebec, and interrupted her studies at Queens to spend almost a year in Norway, to which she later returned to live another half dozen years.

During Sarah’s first stay in Norway, Ian was asked to work for a couple of years in Indonesia at “reforming the governance of financial institutions.” He had never used a passport before, but after so many years encouraging Sarah to see the world he could hardly refuse. Mary and David’s reaction on arriving in Jakarta was to ask “what have you done to us?” However, they ended up staying not two years but four. The financial markets must have asked the same question: soon after Ian started work many Indonesian banks failed and the rupiah lost 90 per cent of its value.

Since his return to Canada David has alternated between work and study in France and Canada. Sarah teaches school in Vancouver, Mary teaches English to immigrants and Ian works for an agency that tries to keep financial institutions on the straight and narrow. So far, they’ve ignored him and have stayed solvent.