Peter J Usher

Peter J. Usher is a Canadian geographer well known for his research and consulting career in northern Canada. Later in life he became intrigued by the experience of those in his family who served in the Second World War, mostly in Bomber Command, prompted by the legacy of their letters and diaries. Supplemented by archival research and site visits in Britain and Europe he began writing books and articles about the lives of Canadians in the air war against Nazi Germany. He is the author of Joey Jacobson’s War: A Jewish Canadian Airman in the Second World War, and of several scholarly articles.

Born in Montreal, Peter obtained post-graduate degrees in geography from McGill and the University of British Columbia. His work in the North began on a survey crew in northern Ontario, and soon came to focus on Indigenous land rights and the environmental impact of industrial resource extraction, spanning the North from Labrador to Alaska. He and his wife live on their hundred-acre woodlot in Lanark County, Ontario, which they manage as part of the Eastern Ontario Model Forest. He enjoys snowshoeing in winter, working in the bush in spring and fall, and exploring the back roads on his bicycle in summer.