bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2007) — Spring/Summer 2007 // Printemps/Été 2007, p. 16
Peter Zalite, engineer, naval officer, entrepreneur, diplomat and docent, died in Ventspils, Latvia, on February 21, 2007. He was 64 years old. After a varied and successful career as a Foreign Service Officer in Canada’s Department of External Affairs, Peter took early retirement and cast about for new challenges. In 1994, after Latvia had regained its independence, Peter returned to the country of his birth. Idealistic and hardworking, Peter wanted to help Latvia get back on its feet after a half-century of foreign occupation and devastating Soviet economic policies. He had come full circle. The Zalite family had fled war-torn Latvia in 1944 for freedom in the West. Peter turned two years old on the ship that sailed from the port city of Liepaja to Danzig (Dansk) in German-occupied Poland. A fascination with ships – his father Janis Zalite was a naval architect – and a love of water has always marked his life.
In 1951, Peter’s family decided to leave Sweden and immigrate to Canada. From the start, Peter excelled at school, skipping several primary grades. He was Head Boy at Montreal’s Rosemount High School and also became a Queen’s Scout. After earning a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from McGill University in 1964 Peter joined the Royal Canadian Navy and served as Lieutenant and navigation officer aboard a destroyer. In 1967, Peter had the pleasurable duty of representing the Royal Canadian Navy at EXPO 67 in Montreal. Shortly after the amalgamation of Canada’s three armed services into the Canadian Forces, Peter resigned, and for several years worked in the private sector. A love of learning sent him back to school to earn an MBA in International Business from the University of British Columbia. Upon graduation in 1972 Peter joined Canada’s diplomatic service.
Peter’s first foreign posting was as Vice-Consul in Dusseldorf. Next, he held the posts of First Secretary in Teheran, Trade Commissioner in Washington, DC, Consul in Hamburg, and Trade Commissioner and First Secretary in Bogota. In between postings, Peter was seconded to various organizations in Ottawa and Vancouver.
In 1968, Peter married Randy Revfem. They had three daughters — Alexandra, Kristina and Tamara – who accompanied him to all but the last posting, Bogota, deemed unsafe for families by the Canadian government. From his youth, Peter had an independent streak and fearless curiosity that led him to areas of Colombia deemed off-limits by the bureaucrats. No doubt, his quick smile and friendly, winning ways with people from all walks of life kept him out of potential difficulties.
Peter loved reading and writing and sharing stories with his family and friends, by now scattered all over the world. His greatest love however, was for his family, and in the end also for Latvia. His idealism and hard work knew no bounds and although his optimism was at times shaken by decisions being taken by the Latvian Saema, he decided to make Latvia his home.
In 1996, Peter married Inita Abolin and they had a son, Janis. Becoming a father again at 54 worried Peter, but he remained active in his young son’s life while lecturing at the Ventspils Augskola, a School of International Business in Ventspils, Latvia. In that same city on the Baltic coast, facing the mouth of a busy harbour, they built a house that had the graceful lines of a ship. From his living room window, Peter would point out the ferries, container ships and other vessels as snub-nosed tugs nudged them into their berths. Peter’s body was cremated and, as he requested, his ashes will be scattered in the Baltic Sea this summer.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2007) — Spring/Summer 2007 // Printemps/Été 2007, p. 16. Read the rest of this issue →
