Whit Fraser talks career, hockey and Governor General coverage in new book

Whit Fraser, husband to Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, posses for a portrait at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

OTTAWA — For Whit Fraser, it all started with a leap of faith — taking a job in Canada’s Far North.

The former journalist and husband of Gov. Gen. Mary Simon was hired by the CBC to work in Iqaluit — then called Frobisher Bay — in April 1967, with no experience as a news reporter.

In his new memoir out Monday, “From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall,” Fraser chronicles everything from his most memorable assignments to the night he met his childhood idol Frank Mahovlich at a dinner at Rideau Hall — all of which he chalks up to that one decision almost 60 years ago.

“As the great baseball player Yogi Berra said, ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it,’” Fraser said in an interview with The Canadian Press, chuckling.

“But the fact that somebody heard me read the news — the one night that I did a good job of reading it — and offered me the job to go North, that was it. That’s good luck, it’s good fortune, and some people may say it’s destiny. But who knows what it is.”

Fraser’s book touches on several of his major assignments while working for the CBC. He reported for the public broadcaster from the parliamentary bureau for eight years and later served as an anchor on what was then CBC Newsworld.

The stories he relates include flying in 1982 to a remote part of Nunavik — where thousands of animals had died after being swept over a waterfall while trying to cross a river — and covering the 1985 crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285R, which claimed 256 lives and is still the deadliest aviation accident ever to occur on Canadian soil. Many observers, Fraser included, say there are still unanswered questions about that tragedy.

“I don’t know if in the future we will ever have any more answers than we have today. No one is asking anymore,” Fraser writes in his memoir.

“What I do know is that I don’t like landing in Gander. It brings me back to a very troubled and uncertain time in our history.”

Throughout his memoir, Fraser gives shout-outs and credit to many of the Inuit broadcasters he’s worked with over the years, such as former Nunavut premier Paul Quassa and Jonah Kelly, widely regarded as a pioneer of Inuit broadcasting.

Fraser told The Canadian Press it was an opportunity to introduce Canadians to prominent Inuit figures they may not know.

“Peter Mansbridge, Knowlton Nash, David Halton, they would marvel if they watched Jonah Kelly working, or others in Yellowknife if they watched what Indigenous broadcasters were capable of doing,” Fraser said.

He recalled a moment in 1968 when, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Kelly translated King’s “I have a dream” speech into Inuktitut, matching the pitch and tone of King’s delivery.

“Jonah drew parallels between the Inuit in the North and the Blacks in the south of the United States, and the civil rights movement,” Fraser recalled.

“And did it within hours of the assassination and (gave) the tape to the station manager, who took it to the airport and found somebody to get it on an airplane to get it to Montreal to broadcast back the next night across the North.”

Fraser said he tried to balance warmer stories with more serious moments in his book.

The most critical part of Fraser’s memoir is his reflection on some media coverage of his wife’s term as Governor General.

“Sadly, I have learned through observation and experience that for some in this new media — few, for sure, but growing — ‘journalism’ has become a licence to lie,” Fraser writes.

“Today, an individual or an agency can lie with impunity and yet, at the same time, hold a membership in the Parliamentary Press Gallery long ago established on the principles of freedom of the press and the public’s right to know.”

Fraser also takes aim at Quebec media, provincial politicians and Liberal cabinet ministers from Quebec who criticized Simon’s lack of fluency in French throughout her tenure.

“None were asked if they had ever tried learning the Governor General’s Indigenous language, which is Inuktitut. Or acknowledge the fact that she was born and raised in Quebec, but not taught French in Quebec schools,” Fraser writes.

“Going there is just too much hypocrisy to bear.”

Fraser dedicates a chapter in his book to his love of hockey. He recalls the 1967 Stanley Cup finals — the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Cup — when he tuned in by radio from the Royal Canadian Legion in Frobisher Bay.

“The Canadian Legion was so cold, we kept the beer in the fridge to keep it from freezing,” Fraser writes.

“We sat at different tables and shouted barbs and jeers when goals were scored, penalties called, or opportunities missed. It struck me then how a half-dozen Inuit men could so easily follow the play-by-play, and yet speak so little English or French.”

Fraser’s love of hockey followed him to Rideau Hall, where he championed a project to refurbish the ice rink with a refrigerated surface. He details that work in his book, describing how he tapped a network of hockey connections to help with the project, including former colleague and current TSN play-by-play voice Gord Miller.

“A few lunches later, I went from playing shinny by myself to a team of superstars scouted by Miller with Chris and Bill O’Reilly, brothers of Boston Bruins great Terry O’Reilly, both of them highly connected in major business and engineering enterprises,” Fraser writes.

As Fraser and Simon prepare to leave Rideau Hall — as reported by The Globe and Mail following the paper’s own interview with Fraser, during which he let slip he and Simon were apartment-hunting — he said one final piece of business he wants to accomplish is putting a roof over the rink.

“If we can go ahead, have a roof over the rink for year-round activity, that’s the big dream,” Fraser told The Canadian Press, adding he envisions a pavilion for cultural performances.

“I think we’ll get it, I think somebody will get it done. I’ll try and stay involved and Gord will too. But we’ll, we’ll get it done. Someday, yeah.”

Nick Murray, The Canadian Press