Fred Bruemmer, CM

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 (born June 26, 1929) is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 nature photographer and researcher

Researcher

A researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...

. He has spent his life travelling extensively throughout the circumpolar regions and to other remote parts of the globe. His works have been centered mostly on the Arctic, its people and its animals. He has also conducted research and published on animals in many other areas of the globe. He speaks nine languages and has written more than a thousand articles for publications around the world, including Canadian Geographic, Natural History, National Geographic and Smithsonian. Fred Bruemmer lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Born in Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, in a Baltic-German family, Bruemmer emigrated to Canada in 1951 and became a citizen in 1956. His book "Survival - A Refugee Life", published in 2005, talks about the harrowing ordeals the young Bruemmer went through during World War II, which led him from his Latvian birthplace to eventual immigration to Canada.

His 1964 photo of a white harp seal

Harp Seal

The harp seal or saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean. It now belongs to the monotypic genus Pagophilus. Its scientific name, Pagophilus groenlandicus, means "ice-lover from Greenland", and its synonym, Phoca...

 pup became an icon and was among 51 photos chosen in the book "Photographs that Changed the World." In 1983 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada

Order of Canada

The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

. Recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee medal, 1993; Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America; Member of the Travel Journalist Guild; North American Nature Photography Association Lifetime Award, 2003; Royal Canadian Institute Sanford Fleming medal, 1989; Honorary Doctoral Degree, Dr.h.c. University of New Brunswick, 1989.

Books by Fred Bruemmer include:

• The Long Hunt (1969);
• Seasons of the Eskimo (1971);
• Encounters with Arctic Animals (1972);
• The Arctic (1974);
• The Life of the Harp Seal (1977);
• Children of the North (1979);
• Summer at Bear River (1980);
• The Arctic World (1985);
• Arctic Animals (1986);
• Seasons of the Seal (1988);
• World of the Polar Bear (1989);
• Seals (1991) (with Eric S. Grace);
• Land of Dark, Land of Light (1993) (with Karen Pandell);
• Les Animaux du Grand Nord (1993) (with Angele Delaunois);
• Arctic Memories: Living with the Inuit (1993);
• Nanook and Nauja: The Polar Bear Cubs (1995) (with Angele Delaunois);
• Kotik: The Baby Seal (1995) (with Angele Delaunois);
• Polar Dance: Born of the North Wind (1997) (with Tom Mangelsen);
• Seals in the Wild (1998)
• Glimpses of Paradise: The Marvel of Masses Animals (2002)
• Survival - A Refugee Life (2005)
• Islands of Fate" (2006)
• Arctic Visions: Pictures from a Vanished world (2009)