Patricia Close, friend

When we first met at the University of London Ontario in 1970, Pegi was the shy quiet girl who annoyingly kept coming first in the class. So when I ran into her again, on the first day of Graduate School at Carleton University in Ottawa, I knew I she would do it again. But I soon learned that she wasn’t just really smart, she was also a fearless outdoors woman. She used to go walking alone in Algonquin Park during moose rutting season. We soon started having many canoe adventures together in the Park. There was the time when just the two of us went for a week’s trip that included a 5-mile portage. We nearly dumped when the first wave hit 5 feet from shore, but Pegi’s skill in the bow saved us from that embarrassment; however, it didn’t save us when we attempted to go down the rapids in front of Carleton during spring run-off. Another time when she paddled back by herself from the middle of Algonquin Park, she proudly told us she managed to get the canoe on the car roof all by herself. She soon moved on from dauntless paddler to intrepid traveler in a world few of us have seen, going by bus from London England to South East Asia through Iran and Iraq. Later she settled down in Toronto she where became a devoted mother to Beth and wife to Philip, a landlady to countless students, a businesswoman, as well as a charity and environmental advocate. Her love for nature never left her, nor did that beautiful smile.