Pi Kennedy, a charismatic Fort Smith trapper and dog musher who documented and ultimately came to embody northern life on the land, has passed away. He will be reunited with Gaddafi, Khomeini and Shania Twain.
Those were names he gave his sled dogs, a clue to the heart and humour that underpinned a lifestyle now vanishingly rare, even in the Northwest Territories.
“When I first met him, he introduced me to his dogs,” said Patti-Kay Hamilton, a former journalist who helped Pi write an autobiographical account of his life on the trapline.
“They were Gaddafi, Khomeini, Bush… Shania Twain was the exception. Most of them were named after controversial politicians, and he did that right until he gave up his dog team. Maybe it was easier to yell at them when he was mad at them.”
Pi passed away peacefully, aged 99, early in the morning of June 27, 2026 at the Northern Lights care facility in Fort Smith, his cousin Richard Mercredi said.
For decades, Pi trapped through the winter and spring then took on jobs around Fort Smith in the summer. His twin loves were bush radio and baseball, and his enthusiasm for documenting the life he lived resulted in an unparalleled photo collection at the NWT Archives.
“I like to say he played his last game and he slid in to home plate to win at 99 and a half years old,” said Mercredi.
“The bush was not just his home and workplace, it was a place that shaped him into a resourceful, resilient and humble man throughout his life … he was trapping from the time he was eight years old till he was 85.”
“He made that whole life seem alive,” said Hamilton, “not something that happened as a heritage moment, not something that happened in the past.”
Bush communicator
Pi, full name Alexander Philip John Kennedy, was born in Fort Smith on December 9, 1926. His father was Philip Kennedy. His mother, Leoni Mercredi, died of tuberculosis in 1932.
Pi attended residential school in Fort Resolution for two years before his father, having broken his arm, took his son out in 1934 to help trap. By 1944, the year Philip also died of tuberculosis, Pi was already a seasoned musher and trapper.
“That way of life, trapping, is slowly receding,” said Mercredi. “He’s probably one of the last old trappers from way back in the 30s and 40s.”
Perhaps counterintuitively for a man whose life was largely spent alone on the land, Pi became a master of communication.
With his bush radio – a rugged orange Spilsbury SBX-11 single sideband transceiver – Pi held court each evening, not only with fellow trappers in the North but also with radio enthusiasts across the continent and worldwide.
“He had a handle called ‘Ice Cream Man’ because he loved ice cream, so that’s what he was called. And he could be heard calling people all over Canada, down in Australia and Alaska, pretty much everywhere,” said Mercredi.
One of his bush radios now lives in the collection of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife. More broadly, Pi’s life has been the basis of multiple museum exhibits and even a series of children’s books that celebrate his Métis heritage.
In the wilderness, radio is how Pi kept track of his beloved Boston Red Sox. While most people would consider baseball a visual spectacle, for years Pi consumed the major leagues almost exclusively through audio play-by-play. In retirement, his home was a shrine to Red Sox memorabilia. He was watching a game the day before he died, Mercredi said.
To Hamilton, who also spent part of her life on the trapline, Pi’s love of baseball was one facet of a man who “broke all the stereotypes” of what being a trapper means.
“Anyone who thinks a trapper is an old hillbilly backwoods person who doesn’t know anything never spoke to Pi Kennedy,” she said.
“The guy was on top of absolutely all current affairs. Every time I walked in the door, before I could even pass him the butter tarts I’d made him, he would say, ‘Did you hear what happened today?’ – and usually I hadn’t.
“He knew about the spill that happened down in McMurray that they had neglected to tell the Northwest Territories about, and he was so angry about that. He always knew what was happening in the world, and it moved him deeply. And he had a lot to say about it. He would have been a great commentator for some political show.”
‘He lit up my life’
In 2010, aged 84, Pi moved permanently to Fort Smith for health reasons.
Even so, he remained sharp, active and deeply thoughtful right up until his passing, friends and relatives said.
Mercredi, joking about Pi’s lifelong love of sweet treats and tendency to ship marshmallows into the bush, said his longevity – “despite the ice cream and garlic sausage” – could be attributed to decades running after dogs, snowshoeing, chopping wood, chiselling ice and setting beaver traps.
“He really, really wanted to dance at his 100th birthday party, so I’m sorry for him that he didn’t get a chance to do that, but he came very close,” said Hamilton.
“He was still so connected with [life on the land], even when he had to get rid of his dogs and could no longer go out. It lived in his head and in his spirit. And when he talked about it, I felt like I was there. I could hear the dogs, I could see the wolves tracking him, see the bears when he confronted them.
“He lit up my life. He made me feel good about a life that I led for a little while and I think it makes other people feel good too, nowadays, you know? Maybe they don’t live that life any more, maybe they did once upon a time, maybe they wish they had, and he just brought it all to life for people.”
