Whit Fraser

WHIT FRASER went north to Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit, Nunavut) in 1967 to work for CBC’s northern service. For the next 32 years he travelled to every community in Canada’s three northern territories,  reporting on the historic events that shaped today’s North, including the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, the negotiations that enshrined Indigenous rights in the Canadian constitution, and the progress of land claims from the initial demands of Dene and Inuit leaders through to the ceremony that inaugurated the new territory of Nunavut in 1999, which he co-hosted as his last broadcast for the CBC. Fraser has also served as the first chairman of the Canadian Polar Commission and as the executive director of the national Inuit organization, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. He is married to Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, Mary Simon. His memoir, True North Rising, won the NWT Northwords Book Prize in 2019. Nunavut’s paper of record, Nunatsiaq News, called it a “must-read for anyone interested in northern Canada.”