Ross Howard.The Globe and Mail
Ross Howard: Journalist. Teacher. Husband. Friend. Born July 7, 1946, in Toronto; died June 8, 2017, in Vancouver; of multiple myeloma; aged 70.
Not everyone grows up to have their dream job, but Ross Howard did, several of them. In an age when no one has much good to say about the prospects for a career in journalism, Ross was always finding new ways of plying his craft in Canada and abroad.
His passion for journalism developed at the campus newspaper of York University and at the Toronto Telegram, where he had his first job after graduation. He worked at the Toronto Star reporting on city hall, the environment and national political affairs, and was briefly a war correspondent during the Falklands War in Argentina.
Growing up in Orangeville, Ont., with younger sisters Carol and Barbara, he developed a love of the outdoors at a young age, spending summers canoeing, boating, hiking and water skiing at the family cottage on Silver Lake in Gravenhurst, Ont. He also worked as a junior forest ranger in his teens. By the time I met him in 1977 no summer was complete without at least one whitewater canoe trip. He rarely capsized. Ross taught me how to analyze rapids to plan the safest way through, how to set up a tent and build a campfire. I was a Brit who'd come to Canada as a young adult and had virtually no experience of the outdoors. We married in 1983. Later in life, after moving to Vancouver, Ross also fell in love with sea kayaking and skiing at Whistler.
The outdoors influenced his work: He wrote a couple of award-winning books, Poisons in Public and (with Michael Perley) Acid Rain: The North American Forecast, exposing corporate abuse of the environment.
Whether Ross was writing stories or building cottage decks, he didn't shy from hard work. He would work late into the night. In those precomputer days, I remember falling asleep to the sound of pounding typewriter keys. In 1984, he joined The Globe and Mail and we moved to Ottawa a few years later when he joined the newspaper's parliamentary bureau. His personal political opinions were well known to his friends, but Ross gained a reputation for being fair and balanced. The next big change was a move across the country to The Globe's B.C. bureau in Vancouver, and this reignited his interest in environmental issues. Later on, in collaboration with his friend George Orr, he made the award-winning documentary Against the Current about Vancouver Island's Uchucklesaht band trying to restore their salmon run.
Ross took up teaching and became a much respected journalism instructor at Langara College in Vancouver. At the same time, he crisscrossed the globe, training journalists in developing and war-torn countries, building on his more than 30 years of reporting on politics, government and conflict.
Ross was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2010. He kept copious notes, read everything he could about his disease and learned to understand his test results. With his natural optimism, he felt he could at least keep it at bay. Alas, that was not to be but he made the most of his remaining years, travelling, teaching and spending time at the beloved family cottage where we scattered his ashes this summer. Ross was the love of my life and centre of my universe. We all miss him so much.
Peggy Heath is Ross Howard's wife.
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