ROGER FREDERICK PEET

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ROGER FREDERICK PEET On May 18, 2018 Roger Frederick Peet passed away peacefully at the St. Boniface Hospital, with his loving wife Martha at his side. Roger was born December 17, 1941 in Twillingate, Newfoundland. He was predeceased by his parents Ronald and Janet Peet (Hardiman), and infant brother Robert. Roger attended Curtis Academy and Prince of Wales College in St John's and graduated from Memorial University with his BSc (1963) and MSc (1965) and in 1983 he received a business management certificate from the University of Manitoba. He had an interesting and fulfilling 30 year career with the Federal government's Department of Fisheries and Oceans working with many different people and in diverse locations primarily in the north. He was first a fisheries biologist working on Arctic Char and Atlantic salmon on the Newfoundland and Labrador coast before moving to Winnipeg in 1972. Based at the Freshwater Institute he started as a project biologist helping to manage the Arctic Char populations of Arctic Canada from the Hudson Bay coast to Baffin Island to the high Arctic coast and islands. As his career progressed he assumed positions of increasing managerial responsibility including an eight year period in Yellowknife and Iqaluit as Area Manager for Fisheries Management for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, returning to Winnipeg prior to his retirement in 1996. Besides his work experience with fisheries management Roger loved being associated with water and boats big and small. His onboard experience began when as a young teenager he signed on as cabin boy, without his parents' knowledge or consent, for summer work on a coastal freighter bound for New York. He was very proud of his 12 years of service with The Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant in 1973. The RCN gave him the opportunity to visit many ports and people around the coast of the North Atlantic. With Martha and their many dog friends he canoed, boated, camped and fished widely in the Yellowknife area, including many parts of Great Slave Lake, and then after they returned to Winnipeg in the Whiteshell and north-western Ontario. Beyond the water Roger's interests were very eclectic: he coached boys and girls soccer teams; he was an excellent sketch artist; he was an avid stamp collector with an emphasis on the sea and on Canada and Newfoundland; he loved woodworking and collecting tools amongst other activities; and was an enthusiastic reader of historical novels. But perhaps his greatest passion was for Taekwondo. He joined Kyung's Taekwando dojang at the relatively senior age of 43 in 1986 and finally retired from active participation in September 2016 because of health restrictions. In February 2018 he was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award / Honorary Referee by Taekwondo Manitoba. That period of more than 30 years was marked by many activities including: promotion through the categories culminating in his 5th Dan Black Belt at the age of 72; referee certification to Provincial Level, Kyorgi - P1 Class; instructor at the YMCA dojang and at the Jameson dojang; chair of the organizing committees for the Taekwondo venues at the 1999 Pan-Am Games and the 2002 North American Indigenous Games. He was appreciated and honoured by students, competitors and organizers but perhaps his greatest honour would be when a strong, healthy young man or woman would approach him in the mall or elsewhere, bow respectfully, and say "Mr. Peet! You won't remember me but you started teaching me Taekwando when I was six (or seven or eight). Thank you very much sir". But Roger would always remember. Left to celebrate his life are his devoted wife Martha, sister Marilyn Clarke (Harold), daughter Jennifer Nakashima (Brian), son Roger (Grace) and grandson Riley, daughter Deborah and grandchildren, Jude and Delilah, and Jako Ottewell (Martha's son), and by his constant companion his dog Cheeko. He will be remembered fondly by many friends from across the country including Patrick Clarke (Mary), Elizabeth Pike, Florence Samson and others in Newfoundland, many ex-colleagues from his days at the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, friends and family of Roger and Martha in Winnipeg, Yellowknife and Taloyoak and members of the Taekwando community in Winnipeg. Roger had a great zest for life and was a man of many stories. He was not afraid to tell of his own failures and foibles making fun at his expense not that of someone else. Roger has now moved on to take part in another story and we will miss his friendship, his love and his stories. We would like to thank Dr. N. Rehsia and staff of the St. Norbert Medical Clinic for their dedicated care and the staff of the Emergency Department and the doctors, nurses and Pastoral Care staff in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Boniface Hospital for their kindness and support for Roger. There will be a celebration of Roger's life at 11:00 a.m., Sunday, May 27, at the Iron Fist Tae Kwon Do, 8-846 Marion Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charity of your choice. www.voyagefuneralhomes.com

As published in Winnipeg Free Press on May 23, 2018