Colleagues, Asger "Red" Pedersen was a respected leader, public servant, and former Speaker of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly passed away on May 30, 2025. He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, November 19, 1935. He came to the Canadian Arctic in 1953 with the Hudson's Bay Company and went on to dedicate his life to the people and communities of the North.
Mr. Pedersen was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1983, representing the Kitikmeot West constituency during the 10th and 11th Assemblies. He served as a Member of the Executive Council, holding numerous portfolios including culture and communications, renewable resources, status of women, the science institution, and later personnel and equal pay. In 1987, he was appointed Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and served in that role until 1989.
I had the pleasure of first meeting Red Pedersen in December 1987 at the hockey rink in Kugluktuk. It was clear from that first conversation that his passion was the people of the community. He truly considered them his family. Over time, I came to understand just how deeply woven he was into the fabric of the North. He served not only as an MLA and Speaker but also as mayor, councillor, and board member on nearly every organization in Kugluktuk and the Kitikmeot region. Yet, if you asked him, he would say his greatest accomplishment was his family. Red's life was one of service, love, and humility. His passing leaves a tremendous void, but his legacy will continue in the lives he touched and the lessons he taught. He was more than a colleague; he was a beacon of hope and strength.
Red Pedersen brought decades of experience in community development and northern governance to his work in the Assembly. He served as an area administrator in Kugluktuk, Pangnirtung, and Fort Res, and was deeply involved in local governance and volunteerism. His leadership was instrumental in organizing the first settlement council in Kugluktuk, where he also served on various community committees and was active in Boy Scouts and Canadian Rangers.
In recognition his unwavering dedication to the Inuit people and their community, Mr. Pedersen was bestowed the honorary title of Inuk, a distinction that held immense personal significance for him. Despite not being of Inuit descent, he played a pivotal role in establishing Inuit institutions, always advocating for their autonomy and ensuring that membership remained exclusive to Inuit beneficiaries. His commitment to the North was not just professional but deeply personal as he devoted his life to the people and the land he came to cherish.
In 2003, Mr. Pedersen was made an honorary lifetime Member of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, the first person to receive this distinction in recognition of his longstanding contributions to the region. He was also a member of the Order of Nunavut and the Order of Canada.
Like most individuals, it is hard to speak on his impact on the residents of the North, so I have attached Freddy Pederson's Celebration of Life and Denis Patterson's news article, which I will deemed as read.
The family would like to thank everybody for their support and kind words during this difficult time. Red will be sadly missed but not forgotten.
Thank you all for coming today as we say farewell to our father, grandfather, great grandfather and great, great grandfather, Red Pedersen. He lived a good long life, he was born in 1935, he was 89 years old when he passed. He got to experience a new life when he came here from Denmark in 1953. He lived with, then lived and worked with Inuit, becoming "adopted" by Steven Angulalik and his family. Emily, thanks for coming and spending this time with us, and Gwen for your beautiful words. He learned much during that time about how to live and survive in the North, and to apprentice with the HBC at various posts.
After getting married to our mother and having a family, he moved to different parts of the North with new job opportunities, to support his family. We lived in Cape Dorset, Pangnirtung, Rae-Edzo and Yellowknife, before settling back here in Kugluktuk. This was where he felt "at home". He tried to move a few times but always returned to where he felt most comfortable, here in Kugluktuk with family and lifelong friends.
You all know of the things he has accomplished in the different public, community and private positions he has held throughout his life. We as a family know that too, however, we have also known him as our dad. And, as our dad he was many things to us. We will miss him dearly. We have the support of a big family, he has 108 descendants, plus all of you, our friends, to lean on when times are tough. That "family" togetherness will help us all cope with his loss.
He is now resting and has met up with his parents (Otto and Ebba), his sister (Sanne), his daughter (Vera) and his son (Hans), and the many other friends and relatives that have passed before him. We can be happy knowing that they have all embraced him and are happy to be together again. We can yearn for the day when we too will meet up with all of them again, but at the same time we want to make sure that until then we take the time to be with our families and friends here, where we live and work. We will keep that strong family tradition alive that he had in his long life.
We have been fortunate enough to have him around to see great great grandchildren, and we still have our mother. Both of them have lived the longest in their families, we can only hope that many of us will move that mark ahead. He always said that there is nothing so bad that something good doesn't come out of it. We'll wait to see what that good thing is that comes from losing him. It's something that's hard to imagine right now.
We miss you already dad and it hurts that you are now gone, but we will keep your spirit alive in our hearts and remember all the great times we've had, the good memories we've made, and the memories still to come. We know your spirit will be with us.
From all of us here today, we say farewell to you Dad, we'll keep you in our hearts forever. Rest in eternal peace, we'll always love you.
Asger 'Red' Pedersen, an Order of Canada and Order of Nunavut holder, honorary Inuk and lifetime Member of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, died in Yellowknife an hour and a bit away by plane from his beloved home community of Kugluktuk in May at the age of 89 after more than 70 years in the Arctic.
Red was a soldier for the Nunavut cause because he fought the forces that would have hived off the Kitikmeot Region to remain in the Western Territory. Red understood very well that the people of his region were connected in history and geography to Yellowknife and Edmonton.
With his lifelong home community of Kugluktuk just 55 kilometers from the NWT boundary, 601 kilometers from Yellowknife and a daunting, expensive two days away by plane from Iqaluit, which was to become the capital of the new territory, many Kugluktuk residents and those in other western communities feared being forgotten as the distant rump of the proposed new territory in the Eastern Arctic.
But Red Pedersen had a long-term vision of a homeland for Inuit that would make the Inuit language and culture strong and give his beloved Inuit control over their lands and resources.
He was so successful in persuading Kitikmeot residents to set aside their doubts and support Nunavut that in the second plebiscite to affirm the Nunavut boundary in 1992, 78 percent of Kugluktuk residents and 70 percent of Cambridge Bay residents voted Yes to a boundary proposal which would see their communities remain in the Nunavut territory.
To understand the change of sentiment in favour of Nunavut that Red's leadership encouraged in the 1982 plebiscite asking should the NWT be divided, Kugluktuk was split with a dismal 25 percent turnout and 51 percent voting No. Cambridge Bay voted 58 percent No.
While we can now look back on the creation of Nunavut as a result of a unified march toward self-determination where all three regions were united in common cause, the Kitikmeot could have been the weak link.
Cambridge Bay vied to be chosen as the capital in the public vote of 1995, and later threw its support behind Rankin Inlet as an alternate to a distant capital in Iqaluit. Leaders like Charlie Lyall, president of Kitikmeot Corp., once famously said the Kitikmeot was better off under the NWT: "I've always maintained that Iqaluit people think the western boundary of Nunavut is the airport runway in Iqaluit!"
The challenge of ensuring the far western region of the Kitikmeot is not forgotten exists to this day. Red Pedersen himself acknowledged that challenge only 18 months after the creation of Nunavut, famously telling CBC North: "At the extreme tip of the tail of any good prime white fox, there are always two or three black hairs. We sometimes think of ourselves as the two or three black hairs at the very tip of the white fox; sometimes we feel very little wagging!"
But Red Pedersen nonetheless always strongly supported Nunavut.
He earned the respect of the people he was twice elected to represent in the NWT legislature. They knew Red as the loyal worker who came to Canada from Denmark at the tender age of 17 to work for Angulalik, the unilingual, legendary Inuk business tycoon who owned the trading post at Parry River and traded up to 2,000 valuable prime white fox furs in a season.
This was where Red learned Inuktitut and became a mentor and lifelong friend of his mentor Angulalik and pioneering Inuit leaders like Norman Evalik.
They knew Red as a devoted, lifelong community Member who was instrumental in forming the first settlement council, the Kitikmeot Inuit Association. He was also a Canadian Ranger (a tradition carried on inter-generationally in his family), and a pioneer businessman (taxi and hotel and outfitting).
They knew Red as a strong supporter of youth, who once said we need to be more supportive of the younger generation: "There's only 14 inches between a kick in the assessment and a pat on the back!"
It was the respect Red Pedersen earned among his people that persuaded them to set aside their doubts and overlook their historic ties to the NWT and instead vote twice, in 1982 and 1993 (and increasingly in favour) for the creation of a new territory for Inuit that followed the treeline boundary all the way to the Arctic Coast and even included the farthest west community Red's hometown of Kugluktuk.
Red is one of those exceptional people who won the esteem of his peers by being a modest, gentle giant whose devotion to community marked his reason for being.
His impact on his community and our territory revealed itself in many ways, large and small. He dismantled and moved houses from outpost camps on the land into Kugluktuk to form the basis for a now-thriving community which he later served as acclaimed mayor.
He was also a champion for Inuit during his political career.
When Red was a Cabinet Minister, he persuaded the NWT government to appoint Helen Klengenberg as the first woman and first Inuk as regional director, recognizing her stellar leadership and later achievement as the first Inuk to earn an MBA.
Recently, at a public event held to honour Kugluktukmiut who earned university degrees where Helen was recognized for her two degrees, Red surprised Helen by presenting her with a caribou antler carving made by her late mother, Lily Angnakak, in 1965. He said he thought it was time the carving was returned to Lily's family. She was surprised and overwhelmed, since that precious caribou antler carving is the only memento, she has from her mother.
As the government's Minister of renewable resources, as a native Dane with credibility in Europe where the animal rights movement festered, Red Pedersen and his late deputy minister Jim Bourque led the drive in Canada to switch to humane trapping. Red pitched himself with vigour against the animal rights movement in Europe, which threatened to decimate Canada's fur industry.
As the Minister of culture and communications, he insisted traditional knowledge must be given as much weight in the NWT government as modern science. That stance presaged the recognition of Inuit Qaujimajaqtuqangit, which is now embedded in the Nunavut regulatory processes. His daily diary entries are a treasure of the history of his beloved region and home community.
And he was elected unanimously by his peers in the NWT legislature to be its Speaker after also being acclaimed as MLA for Kugluktuk in the election of 1987.
As Speaker, Red elevated the position in many ways. He scrapped the formal robes of the British colonial era, insisting on wearing a traditionally designed Speaker's robe reflecting his pedigree as an honorary Inuk. Red even persuaded the Assembly to resurrect a venerable Cadillac limousine out of mothballs for ceremonial occasions and visits by dignitaries and established the Speaker's residence in the penthouse suite of Yellowknife's first high-rise apartment building, Fraser Tower.
For all these reasons, I say this Danish-born giant of a man who married a Greenlander and leaves behind 108 descendants at last count "family was everything to my Dad," his son Baba said.
He was a soldier in the Nunavut cause, a champion of Inuit self-determination and the exemplar of a devoted community resident.
Gone, but never forgotten.
