Pierre Berton Research Paper

A Creator of Canada’s Identity

Pierre Berton a Canadian historian should be in spotlight Canada because of his work for Canada. Pierre Berton helped Canadians identify themselves on a world scale and his work brought knowledge of Canadians to everyone, Pierre Berton Contributed greatly to the identification of Canadians on a world scale through his publishings, as well as helping the general populace understand of who Canadians are and why/how we are Canadians.

Pierre Francis Demarigny Berton was born on July 12, 1920, in Whitehorse Yukon Territory, Canada. After Graduating from the university of British Columbia with a Bachelor Degree in the Arts in 1941,” he became Canada’s youngest city editor at the Vancouver News Herald”(Pierre Berton).

Pierre Berton contributed to Canadian society through all the branches of communication, through radio, television, books and newspapers with his unique perspective. In 1947, a whirlwind swept into the Toronto editorial office of Maclean's magazine in the form of Pierre Berton. He was a brash 27-year-old native of the Yukon who had made his name as a reporter for The Vancouver Sun. A large, boisterous man, endlessly energetic and enthusiastic, Berton raised hackles among some of his more reticent colleagues, but inspired them as well in ways that made it clear he was destined for greater things(Pierre Berton/mckillop). As he established himself as an exceptionally talented magazine writer and editor, he also began to dabble in the media that would make him a household name in Canada--books and television(A Star is Born). Berton produced his first book, The Royal Family, in 1954, launched a writing career that has produced 40 titles. In 1957, he turned to TV, appearing in the CBC's two most popular shows, Close-Up, a public affairs program that ran on Sunday evenings for six years, and Front Page Challenge. Berton said “The statistics of that first year of production exhaust me when I read them. We produced 195 hours of television with 406 different guests, 70 per cent of whom were Canadian, and 163 were new faces never seen before on the small screen. There had been nothing like it before in Canada( Pierre Berton). The CTV network picked up the show after the new year and moved the time back to 11 p.m., a difficult slot because it was seen opposite the avuncular Earl Cameron reading the CBC news. But we made news ourselves, largely because of the calibre of our guests, who ranged from Lester Pearson, Bruce Lee to my mother. My own performance as a host was wanting, and I knew it. I was called ``a bloody bore,'' ``pompous,'' ``outwardly cold and hard,'' ``gauche, trite, ill at ease and downright inept.'' On my first interview with Pearson, then in opposition,