James Adam Craig was born in Sangudo, Alberta to his Hungarian immigrant parents on their homestead in 1924. He was raised speaking Hungarian and did not begin to speak English until he enrolled in school. When his mother grew tired of prairie winters on the family farm, she moved with her sons to Vancouver. His father eventually arrived in Vancouver and became a paramedic, but died tragically when Craig was 15. James Craig did not complete highschool, first leaving to work in the shipyards and then serving as a navigator for the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943.
Following the war, Mr. Craig enrolled at the University of British Columbia and completed a B.A. and subsequently a law degree in 1956. He articled to Victor Butts and once called to the bar in 1957 began his own solo practice which he ran until his retirement 33 years later. He shared office space and letterhead as Goldman, Kemp, Craig and Wener. However Mr. Nisson Goldman insists Craig was not part of the partnership but rather an unpretentiously reliable and skilled solicitor in his own right.
James Craig led an active life, underlined by his passion for mountaineering. He once fell and broke his hand during an ascent of a peak which has since been named Mt. Metacarpus, in memoryof his injury. He also had the opportunity to climb Mount Kennedy in the Yukon, named after the late American president, in a party with Senator Robert Kennedy in commemoration of his brother's assassination. Craig's other notable passion was ballet, and he served for a time as president of the Vancouver Ballet Society. It was also through his passion for ballet that he met his wife Beverley, when she was a member of the corps de ballet of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
James Adam Craig passed away in late 2011.