Merci from a former Radio-Canada Reporter

I met Jon, like so many people, on some remote shore of Newfoundland where yet another whale had gotten entangled in a net or stuck in ice. His presence was formidable and though he may have been exhausted and cold (putting his head in the icy water to assess the whale’s situation sure did not help), there was an aura about him and a sense of calm, peace and gentleness emanating from his being. He was polite always to all of us reporters, answering the endless questions but only once his job was done: the whale, the nets came first.

A few years after this first encounter he took my cameraman Al and myself on a whale watching expedition off Flatrock. We stayed at sea for four hours or so and it was one of the most memorable experiences of my career. We kept in touch sporadically after that – I did several stories on the Whale Resarch Group – and then I left the profession and we only met by chance.

Jon is one of the very few extraordinary persons I had the privilege to met during my journalism career. His intelligence and wit, his love of nature, of people and of this province that he (like me) chose to make his own, will be with me for ever.

My sincere condolences to his family and friends.”

This post was submitted by Françoise Enguehard.