Ken McGoogan

Recipient of the 2006 Pierre Berton Award

November 21, 2011

Canada’s National History Society is pleased to announce Ken McGoogan as the winner of the 2006 Pierre Berton Award for popularizing Canadian history. Now in its twelfth year, the Berton Award has become the biggest history prize in Canada. This year’s award events were held at the Empire Landmark Hotel in conjunction with the National History Conference in Vancouver, on October 21, 2006.

Historical biographer Ken McGoogan is a globe–trotting ex–journalist who survived a shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, placed a commemorative plaque in the High Arctic, and chased the ghost of Jane Lady Franklin across Tasmania.

Born in Montreal and raised in a French–speaking town, he hitch–hiked and rode freights around North America before earning two degrees at universities in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. He worked as a journalist for two decades and has published eight books, one of which (Fatal Passage) is now being turned into a docudrama.

More from Ken McGoogan

History Idol: John Rae

John Rae is not as well known as some of the other famous names of northern exploration — people like Sir John Franklin, for instance. But Ken McGoogan argues that Rae deserves greater recognition than he has received to date because of what he accomplished.

Canada's Greatest Explorers

We asked five historians to come up with who they thought was Canada’s greatest explorer. Some of their picks were expected, some were not.

Dead Reckoning

Book Review: There is no shortage of books on the exploration of the Northwest Passage, so can there really be a story left untold? Author Ken McGoogan, who has written four other books on the Arctic, believes the answer is yes.

Tragic Passage

Thanks to climate change, Canadians are witnessing the last chapter in a centuries-old Artic saga—the opening of the Northwest Passage.