The Sunshine Coast has lost one of its most widely read and highly respected authors with the death of Edith Iglauer on Feb. 12.
Iglauer, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and a Garden Bay resident for more than 40 years, died at Sechelt Hospital, one month shy of her 102nd birthday.
Iglauer had been a journalist since the 1940s and a contributor to magazines like The New Yorker, Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly. She was researching a story on West Coast fishing when she met and later married Sunshine Coast fisherman John Heywood Daly in the early 1970s. Daly died in 1978 and Iglauer wrote a memoir of their time together, Fishing with John. The book became a bestseller and was nominated for the 1989 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction. A TV movie, Navigating the Heart, was made from the book in 2000, starring Jaclyn Smith as Iglauer.
In 2006 at age 89, Iglauer married Pender Harbour author Frank White (who died in 2015), father of publisher Howard White and grandfather of former Gibsons councillor Silas White, who remembers his step-grandmother as a grand local character.
“Edith came to Pender Harbour from Manhattan, of all places, and established her own brand of community by entertaining everyone from local fishermen, to world-renowned writers and artists, to the Governor General of Canada, to the carpenter who had dropped by to build her another bookshelf,” Silas said. “And people did seek her out from all over the world, because of her adventurous and brilliant writing career. It was an odd scene for Pender Harbour, and exciting and inspiring to grow up around.”
Vancouver journalist, author and environmentalist Ian Gill was among those Iglauer hosted.
“She was one of my literary heroes and we became friends. She was just so delightful and so funny and charming and smart,” Gill said. “Edith was one of those magical people you have in your life that you never imagined you’d be having. I loved every minute with her.”
Although best known as a writer, Iglauer also was a nature-lover and activist and, as Gill recalled, was instrumental in fundraising to establish the 81 hectare (200-acre) Francis Point Provincial Park.
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons was another among Iglauer’s legion of friends and played cello at her 100th birthday party in 2017, days after paying tribute to Iglauer in the B.C. Legislature.
“Edith was a hugely influential woman, known, respected and loved by so many,” Simons told Coast Reporter following news of her death. “She had strength and grace and was a compelling presence.”
Iglauer also wrote a book on the Inuit, titled The New People, later reprinted and updated as Inuit Journey, as well as biographies of Pierre Trudeau and architect Arthur Erickson, and authored a retrospective on her own journalism, The Strangers Next Door. She kept writing, well into her 90s, recalls Roberts Creek’s Jan Brinton, who was her secretary for eight years.
“She was gregarious, studious, feisty, funny, and laser-focused on her writing,” Brinton said. “I loved her and everybody who knew Edith loved her.”
Plans for a memorial for Iglauer had not yet been announced as of press time.
