Pete Fraser leaves behind a legacy of good deeds and good times
Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Oct 20/00) - The North lost a good friend last Monday, when Pete Fraser succumbed to a battle with prostate cancer.
An estimated 350 mourners packed the Great Hall of the Legislative Assembly Thursday, to remember Pete. The service was followed by a reception at the Yellowknife Legion.
 Peter Fraser |
He worked his own trapline until he moved to Yellowknife in 1938. He joined the Rangers and then worked as a riverboat pilot on the Canol pipeline project. He went back south after two season on the river and went to work for the Department of Transportation in Fort Smith. Various promotions kept Fraser on the move all over the North. In 1976, Fraser ran and was elected as MLA for the Mackenzie/Great Bear riding.
Fraser's daughter Lila Erasmus said her dad spent his life working for a better future for his family and the people of the North.
"He was a beautiful person -- anyone who knew him was touched by him," she said.
"He was very giving and caring; strong-willed and he liked to help. He loved the North and he loved the people of the North."
"He tried to make a difference in every community he went to, and I think that was one of the reasons he ran for MLA, because he wanted to make a difference -- that was his nature," she said.
"He would give and he would never ask for anything in return."
Life with Pete kept the family on the move she recalled, living in the Yukon, and both the Eastern and Western Arctic.
"We've been through almost every community in the Western Arctic," Lila said. "Every community we lived in, he always did volunteer work."
Always quick with a joke and a good family man, Lila said her dad was always a source of inspiration for the family.
"He has 10 children ... that he admits to," she said with a laugh. "He was very proud of his kids; on occasions I'd hear him bragging about how good his kids were to him and so on."
"It really makes you want to do good, when you hear that kind of thing."
One of Pete's life-long friends, Art Dodman of Yellowknife, said Pete's sense of humor used to keep everyone feeling good.
"We were all over at Pete's one Thanksgiving, playing cards," Dodman recalled. "One guy had a few too many to drink and Pete led him into the livingroom."
"Pete's wife was cooking a turkey bird with all the fixings; stuffing and all that, and Pete came out and asked for the turkey neck," Dodman said.
The men went back to their card game until the sleeping fellow's wife interrupted, asking where her husband was.
"We told her he was having a sleep on the couch and when she went in there, she let out one hell of a scream," he laughed.
Dodman explained that while his friend was asleep, Pete had strategically placed the turkey neck in the zipper of his buddy's pants.
"We went in to see what she was screaming about, and here the cat was chewing away at that turkey neck," Dodman laughed.
Fort Smith's Paul Kaeser has known Pete most of his life.
"He was a good friend," Keiser said.
"He'd give you the shirt off his back."
Kaeser runs the family grocery and dry goods store in Smith and said Pete was a hilarious straight man who'd always come by to share a laugh with the regulars.
"He'd come into the store and he'd rib everybody and you didn't know quite how to take it," he said. "But with Pete you always knew it was on the joking side."
Pete was always up for a game of cards, Kaeser said, and if he couldn't play bridge with friends Jim Bassingthwaite, Leon Peterson and Lou Sebert, he'd settle for a poker game.
"He'd come down and say. 'We've got to play bridge, let's play bridge,'" he recalled. "He was fanatical for bridge; he'd play with anybody."
"If I made a mistake and cost us a few points, he would always say, 'Well they gotta eat, too,'" Keiser recalled.
"It didn't make you feel too bad when you made a mistake."
"Just a great guy..."
Pete Fraser is survived by his wife Ellen, 10 children, 27 grandchildren and six great-grand children.
