Joel Fournier: Husband. Father. Lawyer. Wine lover. Born Sept. 23, 1938, in Midland, Ont.; died Sept. 8, 2024, in Halifax, of medical assistance in dying; aged 85.
Joel FournierCourtesy of family
One time about 20 years ago, my father, mother, sister and me were in Lucca, Italy, during a national holiday. It was April. The town was lively, the festivities in full swing. After dinner we wandered into an amusement park. My father, perhaps buoyed by wine, decided it was the perfect night for a ride on the merry-go-round. A photograph shows him gripping the reins, suffused with joy, encircled by light.
He was happiest in motion, because motion was adventure. He grew up in Midland, Ont. As a boy, he and his friends would dive into the harbour for coins the cruise ship tourists tossed in. At age 17, still seeking his fortune on the water, he left home to join the Royal Canadian Navy at Shearwater, N.S.
It opened the door to the world. He was aboard the aircraft carrier HMCS Magnificent – he called her “the Maggie” – when it delivered peacekeepers to Egypt during the 1956-57 Suez Crisis. He told stories about adventures in ports around the world, most memorably, a slugfest with a gang of locals at the Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast.
Despite having no football experience, he signed up at age 21 to play for the Shearwater Flyers, the navy team in the Atlantic Football Conference. After a few unremarkable seasons, the running back known as “Joltin’ Joel” won the league scoring title in 1964. His 114 points included nine touchdowns in one game against Acadia.
The following year he embarked on his most important and enduring adventure when he married Sheila Parent back in Midland after a long-distance courtship during which they wrote to each other every day, his letters often so long they arrived in multiple envelopes, numbered in sequence.
Together they travelled love’s roads for the next 59 years. They had two children, daughter Renée and son Christopher. My father could be distant and aloof, sometimes dismissive, but he knew how to have fun. He instilled in us a love of games – board games like Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary, card games like euchre and cribbage.
After 15 years in the navy, he didn’t feel like he was living up to his potential so he decided to try something new. In 1970, he enrolled in Physical Education, at Dalhousie University and emerged six years later with a law degree, an impressive achievement for a man who needed night classes to finish high school.
He was practising with a Halifax firm when a phone call from a law-school friend altered his trajectory. The job offer meant relocating the family to Yellowknife to work for the territorial government. He became chief of the legal division, then a partner in a private firm and later, conflict of interest commissioner.
We arrived in Yellowknife in February, 1981. For his children, aged 12 and 14, stepping off the plane in the 2 p.m. twilight at minus 40 degrees, it felt more like exile than adventure.
Over the years, Joel attended legal conferences where excellent wine was served, and he grew to prefer it over dark rum. It developed into a passion. He would research vintages and when the selection at the Yellowknife liquor store was a challenge, he ordered it in by the case. He eventually became a partner in a wine agency and taught us the wine game: guess the grape, the vintage and the region. Repeat.
His roots were francophone but Joel was never at ease with French. At one restaurant in Lyon, he shocked a waiter by asking for the leftovers in a “sac de chien.”
He had his share of late-life health problems, including oral cancer and a near-death COVID-19 experience. This past summer, doctors discovered a more aggressive cancer.
On his final day, he was surrounded by family and, as the MAID dose took effect, he appeared to gently nod his head three times. There may be a more mundane explanation but it looked to me like he was acknowledging someone or something on the other side, asking if he was ready to go. I think of him venturing across, letting go of the reins, suffused with joy, encircled by light.
Chris Fournier is Joel Fournier’s son.
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