Everything about Pierre Berton totally explained
» For other people with the same name, see Pierre Berton (disambiguation).
Pierre Francis De Marigny Berton, CC,
O.Ont,
BA,
D.Litt (
July 12,
1920 –
November 30,
2004) was a noted
Canadian author of non-fiction, especially
Canadiana and
Canadian history, and was a well-known
television personality and
journalist.
An accomplished storyteller, Berton was one of Canada's most prolific and popular
authors. He wrote 50 books, including ones on
popular culture, Canadian history, critiques of mainstream
religion,
anthologies, children's books and historical works for youth. He was credited with popularizing Canadian history.
Biography
He was born on July 12, 1920, in
Whitehorse, Yukon, and raised in the
Yukon, where his father had moved for the
1898 Klondike Gold Rush. His mother, Laura Beatrice Berton (nee Thompson) was a school teacher in Toronto until she was offered a job as a teacher in Dawson City at the age of 29 in 1907. She met Frank Berton in the nearby mining town of Granville shortly after settling in Dawson and teaching kindergarten. Laura Beatrice Berton's autobiography of life in the Yukon entitled
I Married the Klondike was published in her later years and gave her, what her son Pierre describes as 'a modicum of fame, which she thoroughly enjoyed.'
Like his father, Pierre Berton worked in
Klondike mining camps during his years as a history major at the
University of British Columbia, where he also worked on the student paper
The Ubyssey. He spent his early newspaper career in
Vancouver, where at 21 he was the youngest city editor on any
Canadian daily, replacing editorial staff that had been called up during the
Second World War.
Berton himself was conscripted into the
Canadian Army under the
National Resources Mobilization Act in 1942 and attended basic training in British Columbia, nominally as a reinforcement soldier intended for
The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada. He elected to "go Active" (the euphemism for volunteering for overseas service) and his aptitude was such that he was appointed Lance Corporal and attended
NCO school, and became a basic training instructor in the rank of
corporal. Due to a background in university
COTC and inspired by other citizen-soldiers who had been commissioned, he sought training as an officer.
Berton spent the next several years attending a variety of military courses, becoming, in his words, the most highly trained officer in the military. He was warned for overseas duty many times, and was granted embarkation leave many times, each time finding his overseas draft being cancelled. A coveted trainee slot with the Canadian Intelligence Corps saw Berton, now a
Captain, trained to act as an Intelligence Officer (IO), and after a stint as an instructor at the
Royal Military College in
Kingston, Ontario, he finally went overseas in March 1945. In the UK, he was told that he'd have to requalify as an IO because the syllabus in the UK was different from that in the intelligence school in Canada. By the time Berton had requalified, the war in Europe had ended. He volunteered for the Canadian Army Pacific Force (CAPF), granted a final "embarkation leave", and found himself no closer to combat employment by the time the Japanese surrendered in September 1945.
He moved to
Toronto in
1947, and at the age of 31 was named managing editor of
Maclean's. In
1957 he became a key member of the
CBC's public affairs flagship program,
Close-Up, and a permanent panelist on the popular television show
Front Page Challenge. That same year, he also narrated the
Academy Award-nominated
National Film Board of Canada documentary
City of Gold, exploring life in his hometown of Dawson City during the
Klondike Gold Rush.
He joined the
Toronto Star as associate editor and columnist in 1958, leaving in 1962 to commence
The Pierre Berton Show, which ran until 1973. It was on this show, in 1971, Berton that interviewed
Bruce Lee in what was to be the famous martial artist's only television interview. Berton's television career included spots as host and writer on
My Country,
The Great Debate,
Heritage Theatre,
The Secret of My Success and
The National Dream.
He served as the Chancellor of
Yukon College and, along with numerous honorary degrees, received over 30 literary awards such as the
Governor General's Award for Creative Non-Fiction (three times), the
Stephen Leacock Medal of Humour, and the
Gabrielle Léger Award for Lifetime Achievement in Heritage Conservation. He is a member of
Canada's Walk of Fame, having been inducted in
1998. In
The Greatest Canadian project, he was voted #31 in the list of great Canadians.
In
2004, Berton published his 50th book,
Prisoners of the North, after which he announced in an interview with
CanWest News Service that he was retiring from writing. On
October 17,
2004 the
CAD $12.6 million Pierre Berton Resource Library, named in his honour, was opened in
Vaughan, Ontario. He had lived in nearby
Kleinburg, Ontario, for about fifty years.
Berton raised eyebrows in October 2004 by discussing his forty years of recreational use of
marijuana on two
CBC Television programs,
Play and
Rick Mercer Report where he openly gave tips on how to roll a joint and ended with a quick shot of him eating snacks, a la
munchies.
Berton died at
Sunnybrook hospital in Toronto, reportedly of
heart failure, at the age of 84 on
November 30,
2004.
His childhood home in
Dawson City, now called Berton House, is a writers' retreat. Established writers apply for three-month long subsidized residencies there; while in residence, they give a public reading in both Dawson City and Whitehorse. The Berton House Retreat is sponsored by a charitable foundation set up to support it and by the Klondike Visitors Association; the administrator is Elsa Franklin.
Pierre Berton Award
2006 recipient,
Ken McGoogan
Awards
- Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal 2002
- Order of Canada, Companion, 1986.
- Canadian Booksellers Award, 1982.
- Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for non-fiction, 1981
- Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal 1977
- Nellie Award, best public affairs broadcaster in radio, 1978.
- Governor General's Awards for: The Last Spike, 1972; Klondike, 1958; The Mysterious North, 1956.
- Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, 1959.
Selected bibliography
The Mysterious North: Encounters with the Canadian Frontier,1947-1954. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1956.
. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1958. ISBN 0-385-65844-3
The Secret World of Og. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961 (illustrated by William Winter)
The Comfortable Pew. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965.
The Cool, Crazy, Committed World of the Sixties. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966.
The Smug Minority. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968.
The National Dream. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970.
The Last Spike. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971.
The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama . Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.
The Invasion of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980. ISBN 0-316-09216-9
Flames Across the Border. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981. ISBN 0-316-09217-7
Why We Act Like Canadians. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982.
The Klondike Quest. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983.
Vimy. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986. ISBN 0-7710-1339-6
The Arctic Grail. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988. ISBN 0-385-65845-1
The Great Depression. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990. ISBN 0-7710-1270-5
. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1995. ISBN 0-385-25528-4
Marching as to War. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2001. ISBN 0-385-25725-2
The Battle of Lake Erie. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1994 ISBN 0-7710-1424-4 (illustrated by Paul McCusker)
Attack on Montreal. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995. ISBN 0-7710-1419-8
Farewell to the Twentieth Century. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1996. ISBN 0-385-25577-2
. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1997. ISBN 0-385-25662-0
Welcome To The 21st Century. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2000. ISBN 0-385-258186-0Further Information
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