Charles Frederick “Charlie” Roots (1956 - 2016)
Charlie Roots was born in Ottawa and grew up in the Gatineau River Valley. His father was the much-honoured explorer Fred Roots. Charlie was ten when he first came to the Yukon with his father who was working with Monty Alford to organize memorial expeditions into the St. Elias Range. Roots earned his MSc and PhD degrees at Carleton University. His PhD dissertation, “The Regional Tectonic Setting and Evolution of the Late Proterozoic Mount Harper Volcanic Complex,” won the Leopold Gelinas Award of the Volcanology Division of the Geological Association of Canada, and attracted international attention.1) He occasionally returned to the Yukon in the 1980s and met his future wife, Mary Ann Annable-Roots, during one of those trips.2)
Roots started working for the Cordilleran Division of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1987. He was based in Vancouver, investigating Yukon geology. He was seconded from the Geological Survey of Canada to work with the Yukon Geological Survey after that office opened in 1992.3) He participated in the nineteen-person expedition led by Mike Schmidt to put a GPS instrument on the top of Mount Logan to determine its exact height. The mission addressed a geological problem and coincided with the founding of the GSC and Canada’s 125th anniversary.4)
Roots worked on mapping areas along the Alaska border, the Dempster Highway, and the Canol Road. He co-edited a book on the eco-regions of the Yukon and spent a lot of time on public education and in the schools. He produced the Geoscape posters of Yukon’s geological features.5)
Roots’ field work took him by foot across central Yukon and he was a marathon runner, a mountain climber and avid outdoorsman. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2009 but continued to work in his office until 2011, using special aids as the disease slowly progressed.6)
Charlie Roots had courage and determination, unquenchable good humour, and an unfailing willingness to help others. He was a role model for everyone, and an inspiration to early-career geologists and natural scientists. The Charlei Roots Honours Project Fund was created to help fourth-year honours students gain advanced research experience.7)