John P. Kelsall (1924-1995)

A long-time Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America, John Kelsall, died in Vancouver, British Columbia on 24 July 1995. John was born in Nova Scotia and obtained a B.A. at Acadia University, an M.A. at the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia. He joined the Dominion (Canadian) Wildlife Service (CWS) in 1948, when it was a fledgling organization. From 1950 through 1959, from an office in Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), John conducted pioneer ecological studies on the great barren-ground caribou populations in northern Canada. His work culminated in a monograph published in 1968: The Caribou of Canada, which won the Wildlife Society's Outstanding Publication Award and remains one of the most-quoted references in caribou literature. The monograph summarized, to the early 1960s, all that was known about the morphology, behaviour, and ecology of the forest-tundra ecotype of caribou in Canada. ... John's interest in wildlife led him to form a consulting firm after his official retirement. His review of woodland caribou in Canada caused the committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada to list western woodland caribou as "rare" and, later, as "vulnerable". John continued to serve as an active reviewer for scientific journals up to the end. One accomplishment that gave him much satisfaction was helping to develop a curriculum for the first technical school in the Northwest Territories, Thebacha College in Fort Smith. John was a dedicated conservationist. He was active in local conservation societies up to his death. ..