Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman

Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman (November 23, 1883 – August 8, 1973) was a Canadian academic, oceanographer, and fisheries biologist. He is best known for his research on Atlantic salmon and inventing the fast freezing of fish fillets in 1929.

Born in Tintern, Ontario, the son of Lution Erotas Huntsman and Elizabeth Gowanlock Huntsman, Huntsman attended St. Catharines Collegiate Institute before receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1905. He then studied medicine receiving his Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1907. He would not practice medicine and received an honorary M.D. degree from the University of Toronto in 1933.

In 1907, he joined the Department of Zoology of the University of Toronto as a lecturer. In 1917, he was appointed an associate lecturer and was appointed a professor of marine zoology in 1927. He retired in 1954.

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. Notably while here, he personally pursued the invention and introduction of fast frozen fish fillets (named Ice Fillets) for the Toronto market, beating Clarence Birdseye in the race to market fast-frozen fish. However, while the introduction was highly successful, the Canadian government curtailed the experiment as the government believed that it was not supposed to compete with private business. In addition, Huntsman invented "jacketed cold storage" – a lasting innovation that saw the coolant coils in freezers encased in sheets of steel to slow down frosting condensation on the inner surfaces of freezers. This innovation first saw widespread use in cooling cars of railways in the United States and Canada.

In 1980, the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences was established by the Canadian marine science community to recognize excellence of research and outstanding contributions to marine sciences. It is presented annually by the Royal Society of Canada in a ceremony at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. The award honours marine scientists of any nationality who have had and continue to have a significant influence on the course of marine scientific thought.