Robert Dickson was 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...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 and academic.

Dickson formerly worked as a professor for le Département d'études françaises et de traduction (Department of French Studies and Translation) at Laurentian University

Laurentian University

Laurentian University , was incorporated on March 28, 1960, is a mid-sized bilingual university in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada....

 in Sudbury, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. He won the Governor General's Award

Governor General's Award

The Governor General's Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields. The first was conceived in 1937 by Lord Tweedsmuir, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction who created the Governor...

 for French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 poetry in 2002, for his book Humains paysages en temps de paix relative ("Human Landscapes in Times of Relative Peace").

Dickson also wrote songs for the Franco-Ontarian

Franco-Ontarian

Franco-Ontarians are French Canadian or francophone residents of the Canadian province of Ontario. They are sometimes known as "Ontarois"....

 folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...

 group CANO

CANO

CANO were a Canadian progressive rock band in the 1970s and 1980s. They were the most popular and internationally successful musical group in Franco-Ontarian history.-Origins:...

 in the 1970s. He also translated both French and English literary works, including English translations of works by Jean-Marc Dalpé

Jean-Marc Dalpé

Jean Marc Dalpé is a Canadian playwright and poet. He is one of the most important figures in Franco-Ontarian literature....

 and French translations of works by Tomson Highway

Tomson Highway

Tomson Highway, CM is a celebrated Canadian and Cree playwright, novelist, and children's author. He is the author of the plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won him the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Floyd S...

.

Dickson died at his home in Sudbury on March 19, 2007 from brain cancer.

Quotation

"Si je peux poser quelques pierre blanches

pour baliser le sentier à inventer,

je ne serais que très content,

croyant que j'ai ainsi fait quelque chose

de valable avec ma vie." — Robert Dickson