Person

Berton, Pierre

1920-2004

Pierre Francis Berton was born in Whitehorse and schooled in Dawson City; he proceeded to Victoria College and The University of British Columbia, where he earned his BA in 1941. From the Ubyssey, he moved directly to the editor of Vancouver's News Herald. After service in the army, he resumed his literary activity with newspapers and magazines and in the privacy of his study. In 1951, Berton covered the Korean War as the war correspondent of Maclean's. His interests broadened steadily to embrace fiction and non-fiction, humour and children's stories, stage, radio, and television. As a performer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, he has become one of the best-known personalities in the country. He has won the Governor General's Award for Creative Non-fiction and the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.