Northerners mourn Peter Gzowski

Residents of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories say they’ll miss Peter Gzowski, 67, the popular journalist and CBC broadcaster who died last week of emphysema.

Gzowski, 67, was best in known in Nunavut for organizing sea-ice versions of the Peter Gzowski Invitational golf tournaments for literacy, and for being the English language master of ceremonies during nationally-televised celebrations of the creation of Nunavut on April 1, 1999.

“Peter was a friend and an enthusiastic supporter of Nunavut,” Premier Paul Okalik said in a government news release. “He will truly be missed.”

A media statement issued last week by the government of the Northwest Territories said, “We consider him a true northerner.”

In a column published in The Globe and Mail at the beginning of January, Gzowski talked about his friendship with the late Abe Okpik, the man who headed Project Surname in the 1960s.

Gzowski gained nation-wide fame after hosting CBC Radio’s three-hour morning show from 1982 until May 1997, when it went off the air.

Gzowski also hosted This Country in the Morning from 1971 to 1974.