With heavy hearts, we say farewell to Joan Turnbull, beloved wife of 65 years and best friend to her husband, Don.

Joan passed away peacefully on August 1, 2024, at Lady Minto Hospital on Salt Spring Island, B.C., where she lived for over forty years. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Joan was predeceased by her husband. She leaves to mourn her sister Wendy McDonald of Calgary, Alta.; her brother Bill Phillips of Delta, B.C.; sister-in-law Bev Phillips; her nieces Catharine Uitto of Delta, B.C. and Bonnie Phillips of Surrey, B.C.; her nephews Liam McDonald of Lethbridge, Alta. and Cody McDonald of Calgary, Alta.; and her Salt Spring Island, B.C. community.

Joan was loved by all who knew her. We take comfort in knowing that those who live in our hearts are never truly gone and will remain with us forever.

“Bill will remain in my memory for as long as it lasts as a most kind, gentle, loving, funny, witty, and brilliant person who, for me, exemplifies what it is to be a friend, a gentleman, and a marvellous human being with well-chosen and steadfast priorities that made him so beloved by everyone who knew him.” – Tim Yates

Bill Whitelaw died peacefully on Sunday, July 7, 2024, at the Extended Care Unit of the Lady Minto Hospital on Salt Spring Island, BC, following a struggle with dementia. Predeceased by his wife Jenny in 2018, he will be missed by his son Peter and daughter-in-law Helen, his son John and daughter-in-law Tracie, and their daughters Emily and Claire, as well as his brother John’s family, his brother Bruce and family, and his many lifelong friends.

Bill was a self-effacing, softly (sometimes too softly) spoken man who was fun-loving and serious, principled and independent, an intellectual and a lover of farce. He was known as a prankster and a supreme storyteller, an adventurer, and a lover and collector of classical music and books. Endlessly curious, Bill dove into birdwatching, mushroom hunting, and wildflower collecting.

He left an indelible mark on those around him. To his children and grandchildren, he was deeply caring and supportive. Despite working long hours, he refused to let his young boys go to bed without reading to them, and each year he concocted a treasure hunt with devious riddles that had to be solved to find their Easter baskets. When his sons were older, he encouraged them to pursue their hearts’ desires, as long as they worked hard. Later in life, he welcomed news of his granddaughter’s gender transition by cracking a bottle of champagne.

Colleagues and students praised Bill as a wise mentor, a great teacher, and a researcher driven by insatiable curiosity. He was also a merry soul. He was infamous around the medical school for his amusing selection of bow ties, which led to the Dr. Whitelaw You May Be Funny But Your Mother Sure Dresses You Funny award given annually by the medical students. The joy with which he shared news of this “honour” among his friends and colleagues showed that his ego never got in the way of anything he did. One colleague said that “few people have influenced my career and hence my life as much as [Bill],” a sentiment echoed by many.

Bill was born on September 3, 1941, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father was stationed during World War II. The family then moved to Vancouver, where he attended Maple Grove, Point Grey, and Magee schools, and made the first of the many lifelong friends he collected throughout his life. He finished high school at Trinity College School in Ontario, after which he returned to Vancouver to attend the University of British Columbia. After a year, he was accepted to the University of Toronto Honours Math, Physics, and Chemistry program. He thought of this as one of the most challenging academic experiences of his life and was quietly very proud to have graduated from “MPC.” After graduation, he attended medical school at McGill University in Montreal, specializing in Internal Medicine.

While at McGill, Bill noticed the beautiful Jenny Mann in the Dean’s office and summoned the courage to ask her out. In spite of an inauspicious first date in which he slept through a movie, he secured a second date and survived her opening gambit: a water-bomb ambush. The two fell quickly in love and married on May 16, 1970. Their shared sense of adventure took the couple around the world. The first stop was Uganda, where Bill practiced cardiology and tropical medicine and learned firsthand the reality of life under the dictatorial rule of the ruthless Idi Amin. He and Jenny also learned the pain of loss when their daughter Emma died in a terrible accident, an event which affected them deeply for the rest of their lives.

They returned to Montreal in 1972 so Bill could work on a PhD in Respiratory Physiology. Despite their loss, they had two more children, with the births of Peter and John bringing joy back into their lives. After his PhD, the family moved to Edinburgh, where Bill completed postdoctoral studies in 1975-76.

Following a brief return to Montreal, Bill joined the new Faculty of Medicine in Calgary. During his tenure, he led the Division of Respiratory Medicine from 1978 to 1997, helped start the Foothills Medical Centre Sleep Lab, and was instrumental in achieving Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada approval for the division’s training program. He was co-founder of the Calgary History of Medicine Program, which he chaired until 2007.

During their years in Calgary, Bill’s sense of adventure and love of nature inspired many outdoor activities. A place he especially loved was his parents’ off-grid cabin in BC’s interior, which he visited as often as possible, bringing the family up for three weeks every summer. He led Cub Scouts trips, took up whitewater canoeing, hiked regularly, and walked extensively.

Bill and Jenny retired to Salt Spring Island in 2007. Not content to sit on his laurels, Bill joined the Trail and Nature Club, sat on the Lady Minto Hospital Board, and was a Christmas Bird Count section leader. Unfortunately, Jenny suffered a long, slow descent into dementia, and Bill made every arrangement to keep her home and happy as long as possible. When she moved to the nearby Greenwoods assisted living home, he visited every day and often took her for walks and social outings.

After Jenny’s death in 2018, Bill continued to stay fully engaged, joining a group of men called “The Old Codgers” for weekly lunches, traveling to visit friends and family, gardening, and reading extensively. Bill also struggled with dementia, so John and his family moved in with him in 2020 so he could stay at home. He was delighted to live with his granddaughters, taking great interest in their activities and pride in their achievements. In early 2024, his health deteriorated, and he was admitted to the Extended Care Unit at the Lady Minto Hospital, where he died peacefully on July 7th.

Bill and Jenny were lifelong supporters of social and environmental causes. Regular and generous donors to many charities, they also traveled to Nepal, the Philippines, Laos, and China to teach new doctors and help build capacity at local medical schools. Anyone wishing to honour Bill is asked to make a donation to their own favourite charityand to raise a glass in his memory.

Two months ago, I spoke to my father of 39 years. He talked about his upcoming journey with his wife, Sarah. They were planning the first leg of their trip around the world. The duo said their goodbyes and promised to visit on their way back through. That was the last time I spoke to them. Their journey ended together on July 10th when they were discovered deceased on Sable Island.

Brett lived a full life. Retired for 17 years, but never stagnant. After 25 years with CP Rail, my father worked many jobs—from scuba instructor to sailing instructor to BC Ferries employee—always striving to improve the lives of those around him.

With Sarah by his side, they had many adventures. First meeting at a bus stop in the UK, they quickly discovered they shared a love for adventure. Together, they completed three Camino routes and worked to build a home on Salt Spring Island.

The pair were always on the front lines of social justice, from decrying the genocidal actions of countries around the world to supporting many social action movements. My father believed this country could change. With enough people standing up, anything was possible. His work ethic and intelligence allowed him to make a difference in every corner he encountered.

He was actively involved in politics his whole life. Campaigning for Pierre Trudeau in his youth, he always supported the people he believed in. Once, while campaigning in Thunder Bay, Ontario, he was unable to win a seat as alderman but managed to place second. His later years saw a shift in his political beliefs, striving to make the world a better place for everyone. He joined protests for freedom and rights for all and took direct action by engaging with elected officials, often in direct conflict with them.

The friends he made around the world grieve his loss. One of his best friends, Pat Brett from his youth, recalls what Brett was like as a kid and young adult:

“As a kid, Brett was loved and respected by everyone who knew him, male and female alike. As a young teenager, Brett hung out with a group of similarly aged friends. He was one of our leaders because he had access to a car. It was a 1950s-60s Ford Falcon, and boy, did we have fun. He was an exceptional driver for his young age. We could fit six to eight people and spent hours cruising dirt roads around all the sand and gravel pits in Kenora. In fact, we were four-wheeling before four-wheeling became cool. Didn’t need a four-by-four when Brett was at the wheel!

Brett had the travel bug as a young man and made the most of it to go everywhere. When he was old enough to drive, he and his friend ‘Beefy’—Rick Holiday—packed a packsack, picked up four cartons of smokes, and blew out of town to work for CPR as section men. Forty below, fixing railroad tracks between Dryden and Thunder Bay. He went out to Edmonton to live with ‘Granny Maluish.’ His grandfather lived in a little house on the creek. He had a charge account at Smith’s Grocery store, which Brett made good use of. Grandpa would ask Brett to pick up some groceries for him, and he would add a couple of cartons of smokes. As an older teen, he spent a couple of years in Winnipeg as roommates with me, Pat Brett, when I was entertaining all over the city. Brett had no problem telling people where I played that he was my manager. Back in Kenora one morning, Brett’s sisters gave him a perm complete with cute little blonde kiss curls. The boys were gathered around the kitchen table at Dan Donnelly’s house when Brett charged in, all thrilled with his new hairdo. The boys got on his case bad, but by the end of the conversation, he was so cute that we christened him ‘Rosie,’ and it stuck with him for life. And he liked it so much he got a rose tattoo.

Brett’s friends all really admired him as the guy who had a dream of sailing the world and made a point of seeing it through. Unfortunately, his journey was cut short. To those who knew them, it was abundantly clear that Sarah was really good for Brett, and they were so happy together. All along, he made a point of staying in touch with all of us whenever he was coming through Kenora to visit his mother, Peggy. He will be missed by his family and friends around the world.”

Only our love for you is left. Smooth skies and steady winds are what I wish for you.

Forever missed, never forgotten.

Sarah Justine Packwood was born in 1970 to Sean and Kate Packwood. She grew up in the quiet Warwickshire village of Long Itchington, England. Her horizons started to expand when she left home for university in Durham to study biology, after which she went on to obtain an MSc from Bangor University in Wales. Those horizons never really stopped expanding. Sarah chose a career in international aid work and worked on the ground with many different aid agencies in places such as Kosovo, South Sudan, Tanzania/Rwanda, Haiti, India, Namibia, and Papua New Guinea. She faced many hardships and witnessed more trauma than many of us will in a lifetime, but she always persevered and somehow never became hardened by her experiences. When she eventually chose to work closer to home, she continued to work on projects that enabled her to pass on her knowledge to the next generation of aid workers and improve disaster response effectiveness, including working for the UK government Department for International Development (now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office).

One time she was urgently called in to work and, after a ruined weekend in the office, eventually escaped and waited at the bus stop to go home. She got chatting to one Brett Clibbery, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sarah’s mum was terminally ill when she met Brett, and Brett’s sister was in need of a kidney donation from Brett. They each supported the other, and their friendship quickly deepened. After her mum’s death in 2015, Sarah walked the 500-mile pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James) in the French Pyrenees and northern Spain in her memory. This sparked a passion for Camino walking that she then shared with Brett (they did three Camino routes together and were planning to revisit one this year). Brett, in turn, shared his passion for sailing, and they embarked on sailing adventures on board Brett’s sailboat, Theros. They married in Canada on Theros in 2016 and followed it the next spring with a traditional dawn handfasting ceremony at Stonehenge in England.

Sarah embraced what she called “free-range living”: balancing part-time consultancy work, helping Brett build their home on Salt Spring Island, travelling and adventuring with Brett, pursuing her interests in spirituality, nature, music, and songwriting in the bardic tradition, and documenting it all as an enthusiastic budding videographer. That consultancy work involved using her extensive humanitarian aid work experience to help NGOs and international organisations such as UNHCR become more inclusive and effective. She shared her and Brett’s experiences of building their off-grid home from scratch in the ‘Two Blondes on a Build’ YouTube series, joining other Two Blondes projects including: ‘on a boat’ (sailing on Theros) and ‘on a walk’ (their three Caminohiking expeditions).

As a singer/songwriter/bard, her creativity was blossoming: her first single, ‘Meet Me at Table,’ about the friendships made on the Camino, was released last year and had won her recognition as a new songwriter and podcast appearances. Like Brett, Sarah never failed to make friends wherever she went. Her gentleness, kindness, creativity, and positivity touched and inspired many lives around the world, and she will be sorely missed.