Political cartoonist Peter Pickersgill, dead at 77, remembered for his love of Newfoundland
Longtime political cartoonist, radio commentator and author Peter Pickersgill of Salvage, N.L., has died.
According to an online funeral home obituary, Pickersgill — whose 2003 book Neither Here nor There: Reflections on the Smiling Land chronicled his observations on half a century of his time in Newfoundland — died Saturday in Gander. He was 77.
Despite graduating from the University of British Columbia's architecture program in 1972, Pickersgill immediately began a freelance career as a political cartoonist, with work appearing in the Ottawa Citizen, the Ottawa Journal, Hull's Le Devoir and the Toronto Star. He also produced radio commentaries for CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition and, in Newfoundland and Labrador, The Fisheries Broadcast.
Businessman Jeff Mierins, who had known Pickersgill since the late '80s, said Pickersgill was "a great person."
"He was like a big brother to me and a friend and a mentor, all wrapped up in one," he said. The two of them, involved in work with the Ottawa School of Art board, hit it off immediately, he said, despite their different backgrounds.
"He was more political and intellectual and I was more on the business side of things. It seemed like we were like yin and yang, and even though we didn't agree on everything all the time, we both appreciated each other's perspectives, and from those different perspectives, we came up with a bunch of wonderful projects over the years."
Pickersgill was a positive person, all the time, said Mierins.
"Everything he did had a spin of positivity on it," he said. "He would always be trying to look for the good in things, and he would expose it."
He also used his skills as a cartoonist to call politicians out on things when needed, said Mierins.
"He used his intellect and his ability to draw things and write things to make the world a better place, and also make us look at the world in a different set of eyes, with a different perspective."
The town of Salvage, on Newfoundland's Eastport Peninsula, held particular importance for Pickersgill, said Mierins. Pickersgill and his wife, Lisa, moved there permanently in 2004, after having summered there for decades.
"I asked him why he chose Salvage," he said. "I could be wrong, there could be a couple different stories, but he said that as a child, his father would be … politically campaigning around the island, where you'd have to go by boat everywhere, and his mother absolutely loved it."
Pickersgill's parents — Jack Pickersgill was the member of Parliament for Bonavista-Twillingate — settled on making Salvage their retirement home, and Peter and Lisa Pickersgill "fell in love" with it as well.
"It's just an incredible place to be and to regenerate, and to be on the edge of the world, where the wilderness meets civilization," he said.
Any time he hears someone talk about nature, human rights or making the world a better place, he said, he'll think about Pickersgill.
"It's hard not to think of him, if I could put it that way."
