Yellowknife environmentalist Doug Ritchie shared his passion for the environment with a wide network of friends and colleagues during many years working with Ecology North and, most recently, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.
Last night, Ritchie passed away peacefully in Stanton Territorial Hospital, just a month and a day after being diagnosed with cancer. He was 52 and is survived by his wife, filmmaker France Benoit.
magazine Editor Laurie Sarkadi was a great friend and neighbour of Doug’s on the Ingraham Trail. She tweeted this shortly after his passing:
While Aurora danced a jig and the moon softly blinked, stars whispered ‘come,’ to their kindred spirit. #RIP Doug Ritchie.
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— Laurie Sarkadi (@LaurieSarkadi) January 11, 2015
His funeral will be held in his hometown of Kelowna, BC, and a Yellowknife celebration of his life is being planned for this spring.
As a nod to Ritchie’s life and work, here’s a column he wrote for the April/May 2013 issue of EDGE YK magazine entitled Confessions of a Climate Change Activist.
