JavaMoose co-founder Randy Pedersen remembered for big smile

Glen McLean says his last trip with his husband, Randy Pedersen, was his favourite.

The two had travelled to every continent together, and just before the pandemic, they visited Antarctica.

"Watching his face, it was like watching a little kid," McLean said Friday as he recalled the trip.

Pedersen died last weekend at the age of 60 after a lengthy illness.

McLean will miss his big smile.

The couple were together 37 years and spent almost all their time together, first as co-owners of a Japan Camera Centre store, then as co-founders of JavaMoose Coffee Roasters, which started in 1995.

McLean said Pedersen loved animals and people and supported both for more than a decade through the Harbour Lights campaign in Saint John, which is conducted in partnership with CBC.

For the annual campaign, they'd produce a Harbour Lights blend, proceeds of which went toward food banks and the Saint John SPCA Animal Rescue.

"Every year it was like, 'Well, we have to do this, we have to do this, let's make sure that we take care of people,'" McLean said. "And he did."

McLean and Pedersen met in Toronto and moved to Saint John in the mid-1980s to own the camera store together. McLean is originally from Cornwall, Ont., and Pedersen from Surrey, B.C.

A love for the people of Saint John 

After selling the store, they chose coffee as their next venture, an idea Pedersen was passionate about.

"Because it was social, it was meeting people, it was fun," McLean said. "It was — you didn't take yourself so seriously. And that was really important."

And it was important to Pedersen that they take on this venture in Saint John.

"He loved the people of the city," McLean said. And they loved him back.

"I think people gravitated towards him because he was genuine."

Heather Gillis met McLean and Pedersen as a teenager working in the McAllister Place mall, where the camera store was located. A few years after the pair launched JavaMoose, Gillis joined the staff.

Gillis said Pedersen had a way of making people feel connected to him.

"He remembered people's everything, like he remembered your name, he only had to meet you once, and he would know you, and he would remember a personal detail about you," she says.

Pedersen was also a great cook who gave her recipes when she got married, one of which she used this week.

"The world is going to miss him," she said.

A life of adventure

One of McLean's favourite memories with Pedersen comes from the first trip they took together.

It was 1986 and they were in Paris. With $500 between them, they thought they had more than enough for two weeks of traipsing around the city.

But after spending $100 on a cab ride, they realized they needed a different plan.

"All of a sudden, we were Bohemians wandering the streets of Paris," McLean said. "Eating baguettes and cheese and having probably more than a glass of wine."

Together, McLean and Pedersen travelled the globe, from traditional vacation spots like the Caribbean to destinations for more seasoned travellers like Russia.

Every year they would try a new place. Their last trip included a stop at the Iguazú Falls, on the border between Brazil and Argentina.

The falls held special significance for Pedersen, because it was a shooting location for the 1986 film The Mission, which tells the tale of 18th century missionaries in South America.

"He loved The Mission. He loved the music of The Mission," McLean said.

The score was by the legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone, and McLean downloaded some of it on his phone for the trip.

"I turned it on as we're watching all this water tumble over into these ravines, it was like, 'Oh, this is just phenomenal."