Whit Fraser tells ‘stories behind the stories’ in new memoir

Former CBC broadcaster and viceregal consort of Canada Whit Fraser is sharing the “stories behind the stories” in his latest memoir.

During his lengthy journalism career with the CBC, Fraser reported across the North and as a national parliamentary reporter in Ottawa.

Today he lives at Rideau Hall in the nation’s capital and is the husband of Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.

In his new book – From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall: Stories of Canada, set to be published on April 21 – Fraser offers a behind-the-scenes account of stories of national importance he covered as a journalist.

Fraser said the memoir also includes events at Rideau Hall after Simon became governor general and stories that have inspired hope.

“At my age, if I don’t share them now, I may never get a chance,” Fraser, who is now 83, told Cabin Radio.

“It just felt like the right time to do it.”

Fraser said he was inspired to write the book after coming across a souvenir street sign for Yellowknife’s famed Ragged Ass Road on New Year’s Day in 2021 in Caribou River, Nova Scotia.

Of his longtime connection to the North, Fraser said it “always felt right” and he always “felt at home.”

“It was magic and it still is,” he said.

The second half of the book’s title came later in 2021, when Simon was named governor general.

From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall includes stories about the 1978 crash of the Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 in the NWT, the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster outside Newfoundland in 1982, and the mass drowning of caribou attempting to cross the Caniapiscau River in Nunavik in 1984.

It also covers the 1985 voyage of the US Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea through the Northwest Passage, the Arrow Air fatal plane crash in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador in 1985, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and two papal visits to Canada.

Fraser said he hopes readers come away with a better understanding of Canada.

“I hope it gives a sense of the size of the country, who we are as Canadians, what makes us tick, why we’re different from the United States,” he said, adding that’s now of particular interest given what’s happening south of the border.

“I’ve noticed in the last year and a half or so, as I know many people have, that we are all a little more patriotic. We all wrap ourselves a little tighter in the flag, we all sing maybe a little louder on the national anthem,” he said.

“I hope my book just reminds some people of the things that make this country what it is, and from a human perspective.”

From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall will be Fraser’s second memoir.

His first, True North Rising, was published in 2018 and reflects on his 50 years living and working in the North, alongside political changes in the region.

Fraser is also the author of Cold Edge of Heaven, a historical fiction novel set in the Arctic.