Good fortune and far-flung assignments let Whit Fraser see Canada’s Arctic as few others have. His passion for the Arctic and its peoples began more than five decades ago when he relocated from Nova Scotia to the Canadian Arctic to work with CBC North. From his base in Iqaluit (then called Frobisher Bay) and later Yellowknife, he travelled throughout the Canadian North as well as to Alaska and Greenland. His media coverage included the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, the negotiations leading to the signing of comprehensive Inuit land claims agreements, the historic First Ministers’ meetings to affirm Indigenous rights in Canada’s constitution, and Nunavut’s establishment as Canada’s largest and northernmost territory. Following his 25-year broadcasting career, he became the founding chair of the Canadian Polar Commission from 1991-1997 and worked with the board of directors on measures to improve Northern health and address social issues, as well as to enhance science policy in polar regions. As the executive director of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization, from 2001 to 2006, he coordinated the Inuit-specific agenda presented to the Kelowna First Ministers’ meeting on Aboriginal issues in 2005.

True North Rising, his award-winning and best-selling memoir, is an eyewitness account of the courage, resilience and commitment of “young radicals who changed the North and Canada” – one of whom is his wife of 30 years, the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous governor general. Many reviewers consider this book a must read to understand today’s North. His novel, Cold Edge of Heaven, is a Canadian adventure set in the mid-1920s when Canada was claiming Arctic sovereignty while ignoring the people who lived there.