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Yukon's most famous son, Canadian author and broadcaster Pierre Berton, died Tuesday in a Toronto hospital. He was 84.
Berton, who brought the history of the Klondike Gold Rush and other moments of Canadian history alive in books and television from the 1950s to the 70s, was one of Canada's most beloved literary figures.
The award-winning author wrote dozens of books on Canada, three of which won the Governor General's medal for non-fiction: The Mysterious North(1956); Klondike: The Life and Death of the Last Gold Rush(1958); and The Last Spike (1971).
Born in 1920 and raised in Dawson City, Berton's family stayed in the Klondike for years after the Rush, and Pierre grew up in a virtual ghost town.
The family moved to Vancouver in the Depression, and Berton went to the University of British Columbia.
A journalist at heart, he went to UBC so he could write for the school newspaper. At 22 he became the city editor of the Vancouver News Herald, then moved to the Vancouver Sun, and then to Maclean's Magazine. At age 31 he became the magazine's managing editor.
He became a national television institution on Front Page Challenge, a member of the news story-guessing panel until its end.
Although he left the Yukon many years ago Berton, who became the first chancellor of Yukon College, always had a fondness for the North.
"A northern character is different, different from a southern character, they're not as outgoing or as effusive or as ebullient, say as a southerner. They don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they're also contained within themselves," he told CBC North radio last year.
"And they weren't as loudmouthed as southerners, if they had something to say they said it. But they said it much more quietlier (sic). With y'know, much more assurance."
Railway histories
But it was his books on the country's railway history that probably did the most for his image as a nationalist.
The CBC turned his books on the building of the CPR into a television series, with Berton himself as narrator.
Those cemented his image as a Canadian icon, and in 1996 became a Companion in the Order of Canada.
But Berton let it be known he wasn't happy about getting old.
"There's no use pretending that it's nice to be old," he said. "I can't stand these dreadful patronizing newspaper articles and magazines pieces in which they say how wonderful it is to be a senior citizen. It's wonderful to be young.
There's nothing nice about being a senior citizen. But what you can do is make the best of it."
Berton still made the best of it, even appearing in Rick Mercer's satirical show Monday Report this fall, offering tips on the best way to roll a marijuana joint. He told the Toronto Star he had been smoking recreationally since the 1960s.
In 1995, Berton wrote his autobiography My Times. He spent his final years at his home in Kleinburg, Ontario.
a sad day. he was the only person from northern canada to do anything famous, not to mention he wrote some great stuff.
