Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Gus Yaki, the renowned Calgary birder and naturalist, passed away on August 10th at the age of 87. Gus was the face of Calgary birding for the past 27 years, and his passion for nature and conservation were an inspiration to thousands of Calgarians. He spent countless hours leading birding and botany field trips and giving presentations, and he helped to raise many thousands of dollars for conservation organizations. He was a good friend and mentor to me and to many others, including quite a few people who have gone on to have careers as professional biologists.

Gus was born on August 19, 1932. His family was living in Sandwith, Saskatchewan, near North Battleford, at the time. Gus may have been born in Sandwith, or possibly in the North Battleford hospital. He became interested in birds on his twice-daily five-kilometer walks between his family’s farm and his school. He would see a bird on the way to school, and try to find out its identity using a bird book that his teacher had. Then on the way home, he would find the bird again to confirm the identification. Before long, Gus’s interests expanded to include mammals, plants, and all other aspects of nature.

Gus once told me a story that I think illustrates the inquisitiveness and perseverance he had even as a child. He had read about a study done on Northern Flickers. A nesting female usually lays one egg a day until the clutch of about eight is complete. But researchers found that if they removed the egg every day, the female would continue laying one egg a day for a very long time – over sixty straight days – provided she had adequate nutrition. Gus and his brother decided to repeat this experiment, and climbed a tree every day to remove the egg from the nest cavity of a Northern Flicker. They continued this for thirty-seven days, and the bird laid a new egg each day. (Don’t try this at home.)

Gus was an avid birder as a young man and he continued his self-education as a naturalist. In 1951 he began serving with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was trained in Regina, and then the RCMP sent him to Toronto, where he joined the Toronto Field Naturalists. Before long he was stationed on the Six Nations Reserve in Ohswekan, Ontario.

At the time, a new Mountie had to be in the force for five years before he could marry. After meeting the sister of one of his Mountie friends, he didn’t want to wait five years. He left the force after about two years so that he could marry his first wife, Rae Yaki.

In the early 1960’s he lived in Lindsay, Ontario, where he was President of the local Nature Club for two years. In 1966, he was one of the founding members and first president of the Niagara Falls Nature Club, which was dedicated to speaking up on environmental issues and to educating people about the nature around them. These would be the common themes of his work for the rest of his life. Within a year of its founding the Niagara Falls Nature Club had over four hundred members, which led to Gus getting a position on the board of directors of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists (FON). He was on the board when they voted to create a land conservation organization, which became the Nature Conservancy of Canada. He was involved in the establishment of the Bruce Trail, a 900-km hiking trail that runs along the Niagara escarpment in Ontario. It is the oldest and longest marked hiking trail in Canada.

One of Gus’s tasks for the FON was to run their outdoor trips program. Gus’s vision was to build a loyal following of repeat customers. Eventually he was inspired to start his own eco-tour company, Ontario Nature Tours, in 1972. He was determined to provide this service to clients whether every trip was profitable or not – feeling, as always, that educating and inspiring people and giving them a positive experience in nature was the most important thing (and that this approach would lead to profitability in the long run). After a couple of years he expanded the service outside of Ontario and renamed the company Nature Travel Service (NTS). NTS offered guided trips to destinations all over the world, with Gus leading most of the trips himself as a bird and nature guide. He ran this business for twenty years, during which time he personally travelled to seventy-six political entities and all seven continents. Gus never kept a bird life list, but he estimated that he had seen about half of all the bird species in the world, or about 5,000 species. In order to arrange and guide these trips, he had to educate himself on the birds, mammals, plants, and geography of the destinations.

In 1991 Gus sold NTS and in 1993 he moved to Calgary and married Aileen Pelzer (they had met on one of the NTS tours). Gus immediately began to explore the city and region, and became active in local conservation organizations. He was a long-time editor of Nature Calgary’s publication PICA, and was the field trip coordinator for many years. He personally led dozens of field trips every year for Nature Calgary and other organizations, all the while giving presentations to local schools and other groups, organizing bio-blitzes, and still occasionally leading tours professionally for Nature Travel Service until 2003.

Shortly after arriving in Calgary Gus did a walk with his wife Aileen Pelzer from their house on Brunswick Avenue to the Glenmore Dam. Thereafter, this 3.5-kilometer hike became a monthly Nature Calgary field trip, the Elbow River Bird Survey. It has been held continuously on the first day of each month for 27 years.

Gus had a knack for coming up with special field trip ideas that became annual highlights on the Nature Calgary schedule. In 2000 he led a trip on the Victoria Day Holiday, billed as an attempt to find 100 species of birds within the Calgary city limits in one day. The group was out from 7 am to 5 pm, and succeeded in finding 116 species! Gus led this for several years before passing it off to other leaders. I have helped lead this trip several times in recent years and it is a very popular outing.

Gus used to do a post-sunset trip into the Weaselhead in late February to listen for Northern Saw-whet Owls. When I first attended this walk in 2008 we happened to see a Northern Flying-Squirrel glide in to the bird feeders well after dark. Thereafter, this became an annual Northern Saw-whet Owl/Northern Flying Squirrel trip, one which Dan Arndt and I have now led for several years.

By far the most popular field trip that Gus led every year was the Dawn Chorus, which started at 3:30 am on the second Saturday in June. A group of up to forty-five avid birders would follow Gus through the Weaselhead until 7 am. Gus sported a large paper pinned to a piece of cardboard on a string around his neck, and on this he recorded the time that every bird and mammal species was first heard or seen. Up to seventy-five species were recorded.

For the year 2000 Gus proposed to Nature Calgary that they hold a year-long competition to see who could find the most bird species within the city limits during the calendar year. This generated a lot of interest, and the idea was repeated in 2005 using the 80-km diameter circle used for the May Species Count. In 2010 Gus again led the annual competition within the city limits; in 2015 we had another in the large circle; and we have continued the tradition this year with the Calgary 2020 Big Year Birding Challenge.

One of Gus’s greatest contributions started slowly in 2005 when he began leading weekly field trips for the Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society (FFCPPS), billed as a birding course. Gus would go out every Saturday morning with the same group of ten participants to a different natural area in the city, teaching them about birds and natural history. Through word of mouth the demand for this grew, so Gus added another weekly session for ten more participants, then another, and another. Gus had to add more leaders, then had to train new leaders, and by 2019 there were three 12-week sessions of the birding course, with up to fourteen groups going out each week, and a total of over 240 participants every week. Gus always said that there was a lot of interest in nature, and we just had to find ways to engage people. The FFCPPS birding courses have proved this. I think this has been a model of how to build a naturalist community, as many of the people who began attending the course as raw beginners (including myself) went on to become leaders themselves and to become involved in key positions in Nature Calgary and other conservation organizations in the city.

Gus also ran a popular botany course with the same principle. The groups go out once a week from early spring to late fall to whichever natural area in the city has blooming wildflowers at that time. There are also some out of town trips to find rare plants or to see fungi and lichens.

Another initiative in recent years was to arrange for groups of people to go out every morning in the spring to see Sharp-tailed Grouse on a lek from a blind set up nearby. For these trips, as for the botany course, Gus only asked participants to make a donation to a conservation organization, if they could afford it.

I first met Gus in early January 2008, shortly after I began birding seriously. I was in Fish Creek Park preparing to go on a Nature Calgary field trip. Another attendee, recognizing that I was new to the outings, had asked me how I got interested in birding. I explained that I had recently read the book Wild America by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher. The book was a record of their ninety-day, 30,000-km trip around North America in 1953. They visited many of the wildest places left, and saw almost 600 bird species. This book inspired me to become serious about birding after years as a backyard birder. Gus, who was nearby, preparing for a FFCPPS outing, overheard me and told me that he had led a similar trip around North America, and that there was a book about it. He had an extra copy if I was interested. A week later I picked up the book and he signed it for me.

Gus’s trip was with NTS in 1983. He had also greatly enjoyed Wild America, and he decided to recreate the trip on its 30th anniversary. Among the participants was the writer Lyn Hancock, who wrote a book about it called Looking For The Wild. The acclaimed wildlife artist Robert Bateman and Roger Tory Peterson himself joined the group for the Alaskan portion of the tour.

After that I continued to attend Nature Calgary field trips and began going to their Bird Studies Group talks, where I would always see Gus and Aileen sitting near the front of the room. I made a special effort to attend any field trip that Gus was leading. He was always incredibly informative about all aspects of nature. He had a very entertaining and effective way of teaching us to recognize the essential features of birds, plants, and animals, so we could put a name to what we saw. But he also taught in depth, revealing the interconnectedness of living things through his deep understanding of ecology.

I soon signed up for the FFCPPS birding course and attended weekly field trips with Gus. After the fall session, he asked me if I would assist him in leading the outings in the winter session. He said his hearing was not that good anymore and he needed someone with younger ears to help him find the birds. I was very nervous about leading at first but I soon came to really enjoy these outings and helping to teach the other participants.

The FFCPPS course was rapidly expanding then, and Gus asked me if would lead a new group myself. I was very unsure at first if I was ready. My friend Dan Arndt was also in our group at the time so I asked Gus if Dan and I could lead together, and he agreed. So Dan and I both became leaders and we both found it to be a fun, rewarding, and educational experience.

In 2009 Gus decided to repeat the year 2000 competition to see who could find the most species in the city in a year. He asked for feedback and when I offered a couple of ideas he invited me to sit on the organizing committee. We needed to do publicity and to have a way to communicate with the participants, so Pat Bumstead (who was also on the committee) started a blog called Birds Calgary 2010. I volunteered to help with it, and have been writing for it ever since (after the 2010 competition it was renamed Birds Calgary and became a general-interest birding blog).

When I started birding I was only interested in seeing more birds and learning more about them; I never had any intention of leading field trips, organizing competitions, writing blog posts, or doing presentations. Unlike Gus, I am an introverted person, but Gus had a way of drawing people in and convincing them that they could and should be leaders.

Field trips with Gus were always entertaining. He had a large repertoire of jokes and puns. “Do you know how you can recognize a Dogwood Tree? –By its bark.” I heard some of them dozens of times but they always got a laugh, especially from new participants. He also often came up with some very funny spontaneous wordplay. Once he said he heard a Spotted Sandpiper from up the river. One of the birders trained her binoculars on the banks but failed to see it. “Gus, did you spot that sandpiper?” she asked after a while. “No,” he replied, “It was already Spotted.” (I had the opportunity to re-use that one once myself.) Gus would make sure to talk to each participant at some point, to learn their name and something personal about them. He had a way of making everyone feel important.

He was also very generous. When he arrived for a field trip, he often had publications or posters in the back of his car to give to anyone who was interested. In the fall, he would give away produce from his garden. He invited people to come and take plants from his yard every spring.

Due to his engaging personality and his expertise, his field trips were usually well-attended. In the May Species Count and the Christmas Bird Counts, he always had the biggest group. One of his Christmas counts was along the Elbow River near his house. He started a Nature Calgary trip so that anyone who wanted to could join him the week prior to scout the area, and then the whole group would go to his house for a hot meal.

I have many great memories of field trips with Gus. On the first Elbow River Bird Survey I attended, near the end of the three-and-a-half-hour walk, he asked me how many bird species we had seen. I said I didn’t know, maybe sixteen? Gus said, “Twenty-four.” Then he astonished me by quickly rattling them off in taxonomic order from memory. Next he gave the numbers of each species seen. He never wrote down the information during a trip since he was busy teaching the entire time. (With practice I found that I could do a decent job of remembering what was seen, but I much prefer using eBird to keep track as I go.)

On one trip a large “V” of Canada Geese flew over, and as Gus told the group about the aerodynamic reasons for the shape, I counted the birds. Then after the geese were out of sight I asked “How many geese do you think were in that flock?” Gus had the other participants guess first, and they gave widely varying answers. Then Gus said it was about 75. I had counted 74. A lesson followed on how to estimate the numbers of birds in flocks of various sizes. Then he asked a newer participant the inevitable riddle – why is one arm of the “V” always longer than the other? (Because there are more birds in that arm.)

As shown in the photo above, we once found a sick or injured immature gull by the Bow River. This led to a long discussion of mortality rates in different species of birds at different ages, the inevitability of high mortality rates among wild animals, wildlife rehabilitation, gull molting patterns, and other topics. Moments like this that show the intellectual depth of birding are what draw us deep into it as a lifetime passion.

I recall a crisp winter morning when Gus introduced a field trip by giving a history of the entire universe from the Big Bang, through star formation, the origin of our solar system, and the evolution of life on earth, all leading to that exact moment in time and space where we were preparing to go out and appreciate whatever we saw.

Another memorable day was a winter field trip in Carburn Park. In driving snow and cold temperatures I was the only one to show up. Gus was there to lead, and he said, “Since I’m here, I going for a walk.” So we did the whole two-hour trip around the park, just the two of us, and although the conditions were not ideal for birding, I was able to ask him dozens of questions, which he patiently answered.

There were many more trips – to see tracks in the snow, to see the Douglas-Firs of Calgary, to see Whooping Cranes at the Calgary Zoo Ranch.

A few years ago Gus’s friend Robert Bateman introduced him at an event by calling him “The most accomplished naturalist in North America.” Calgarians were very lucky to have him as a guide for so long.

Gus was a big supporter of Birds & Beers, the social get-togethers we have held monthly here in Calgary for several years. Dan Arndt had the idea of trying it here after if had been done successfully in other cities. Gus and Aileen and many others really enjoyed this opportunity to visit with and connect with other birders, but Gus said we could draw more people to these events if we had short presentations at the end, and he offered to do the first one. It was well-received, and after that, attendance was always higher when we had presentations at Birds & Beers. We started to have talks almost every month, and when Gus spoke, we had up to 110 people attending. Gus also encouraged a number of other people to speak at these events. He even persuaded Dan Arndt and I to begin speaking in public, which neither of us was at all comfortable with at first.

Gus always encouraged people to keep careful records of their birding outings and to include the number of people, the distance travelled, and the weather. He always posted his lists on the Albertabird discussion site so that the observations would be part of a permanent record available to anyone. Naturally, when eBird became widely used he was interested in it, and he hoped to eventually transfer all of his paper trip records to eBird. I spent a winter teaching him to use eBird and helping him to enter all his personal birding records from 1943 to 1963. He later added more records up until August 2019.

Gus also liked the iNaturalist platform since one could record all living things rather than just birds. When Matthew Wallace, the urban ecologist from Calgary, approached Gus about the idea of having Calgary take part in the City Nature Challenge using iNaturalist in 2019, Gus immediately scheduled many outings for the event through Nature Calgary, and he made his yard available for anyone who wanted to record birds, plants, and insects there over the four-day event.

One of the most remarkable projects Gus undertook in recent years was his walk across Southern Alberta from Saskatchewan to Waterton Park in 2017, to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. Many people joined him for all of part of this trip, saw a lot of birds, plants, and mammals, and raised money for conservation organizations. I wasn’t able to attend, but Dave Russum did, and he has since followed Gus’s lead and arranged more trips to this part of the province.

Gus was very concerned about the many serious threats to the environment. He was convinced that exposing people to the natural world and educating them about these threats was the path to bettering our world. He was completely dedicated to this. Gus was the most focused person I’ve ever met. His entire life revolved around natural history and conservation causes. He did not watch TV or know anything about popular culture. In the thirteen years I knew him, he led up to a dozen field trips every week, gave many talks and presentations, and he spent five to six hours every single day dealing with his vast email correspondence. He had literally thousands of contacts, who he kept informed about conservation issues, birding events, and social justice petitions and activities. In addition he generously answered all questions and shared nature photos and videos with everyone.

Gus kept in good health into his eighties by walking a lot and being very consistent in his habits. He did not drink alcohol, was a vegetarian, and never ate outside of regular meals. He also set an example by recycling and reusing, driving a hybrid car, and always picking up garbage on the trails during field trips.

Gus received many awards and accolades over the years for his conservation efforts. He received seven honours in late 2019 alone, including being named one of Calgary’s “Top 7 Over 70” years old and being awarded the Governor General’s Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers.

It’s not often that you think someone is gone way too soon at the age of 87. But Gus was still very active until his final illness. Until December 2019 he was still leading FFCPPS field trips and he took part in several Christmas Bird Counts. He had many projects that he someday hoped to complete during his “retirement” – if he ever reached it. He was working on a book about the vascular plants of Calgary. He had thousands of photos of Calgary-area birds that he wanted to use in many future presentations. He wanted to enter all of the Nature Travel Service birding records, twenty years of trips from all over the world, into eBird. Personally, I was certainly looking forward to my retirement and the opportunity to spend more time in the field with Gus.

In January 2020 Gus was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Gus and Aileen sold the house on Brunswick Avenue and moved into a senior’s residence.

At one point when he was very ill Gus became quite pessimistic about his legacy, feeling that he would soon be forgotten. His friends and colleagues know that this could not be farther from the truth. He has accomplished so much, and has been a mentor and inspiration to so many people over the years. People like Yousif Attia (now of Birds Canada) who grew up birding with Gus and who considers Gus to be his primary mentor. People like Dan Arndt, now a professional biologist, who was inspired by Gus’s teaching and encouragement. A new generation of accomplished young birders like Ethan Denton and Gavin Mckinnon are now also following Gus’s example.

Many of us will continue to carry the torch for Gus. His book on vascular plants will be completed as a collaboration. His photos will be distributed so that other people can do presentations about them, using Gus’s notes. Dave Russum will lead more walks in southern Alberta. David Mitchell has taken over running the Friends of Fish Creek birding course, with the help of many leaders who were trained by Gus. Ron Ostrander is leading the Elbow River Bird Survey every month, with help from Diane Stinson and Jim St. Laurent. Karel Bergmann will continue the botany course. Many of the field trips he initiated and once led will continue to be offered and to be enjoyed by future generations of Calgary birders. And someday, likely during my own retirement, I will enter Gus’s birding records from his NTS trips into eBird.

Gus spent the last two weeks or so of his life in the Rockyview hospital, where, from his seventh-floor window, he had a wonderful view of the Glenmore Reservoir. There were binoculars and a spotting scope in the room, and Gus had enjoyed seeing birds over the water. Gus said that he had had a good life, a good wife in Aileen, and had fun while it lasted, but he was ready to go. He asked for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) which was scheduled for August 10th, just a few days before his 88th birthday.

I was able to visit Gus two days before his death. Due to Covid I hadn’t seen him since his diagnosis. He was weak and thin, but mentally just as sharp as ever. He said he was ready to go. He also kept his sense of humour to the end. Matthew Wallace visited him the next day, one day before his scheduled MAID. Near the end of their visit, Matthew asked Gus if he had any advice for him. Gus looked off into the distance and was silent for a very long time. Finally, he spoke. “No,” he said. “Do you have any advice for me?” – which left everyone in the room laughing and crying at the same time.

After my visit, I went to 420 Brunswick Avenue. Gus and Aileen had arranged with the new owners that their friends could come and take whichever plants they wanted from the yard. I hadn’t made it over there earlier, and was still hoping to get a few things. But the house which had held Gus’s vast library and was a meeting-place for Calgary birders was gone. The yard, formerly full of native plants and where Gus had recorded over 150 bird species, was empty, stripped of its topsoil and with only four trees remaining at the back. I took a handful of soil from the edge of the lot – it is bound to be full of native plant seeds, so I plan to water it and see what grows.

It’s hard to see a place like that go, and it’s very hard to lose someone like Gus. But just as Gus’s library has found new homes across Calgary, and descendents of his plants thrive in gardens all across the city, so has Gus’s knowledge of natural history been distributed to thousands of people over the years, and will be passed on to future generations.

Gus Yaki was a remarkable man, one of the best and most interesting people I have ever met. He made a tremendous contribution to the birding community and to conservation causes here and across Canada. He did what he could to make the world a better place. Gus will be greatly missed and always remembered.

On behalf of Birds Calgary, my condolences go out Gus’s wonderful wife Aileen Pelzer, and to his entire extended family; and special thanks to Gus’s son David Yaki for everything he has done for Gus, Aileen, and their friends over the past several months, and for providing some of the biographical details about Gus’s early years.

Anyone who would like to remember Gus Yaki’s legacy can make a donation to the Nature Conservancy of Canada or the Alberta Wilderness Association.

Sources and links:

Click here for an interview with Gus that Matthew Sim posted on the blog in 2012.

Gus Yaki obituary in the Calgary Herald.

Alberta Wilderness Association article.

Tribute article on the CBC News site.

Here is a video about Gus showing him leading a field trip, from CTV News.

A nice tribute by Matthew Wallace on Instagram.

Dan Arndt’s inspiring words, with many comments from people who knew Gus.

Note: Some of the photos here are uncredited – I saved them from emails over the years without recording who they were from. I apologize for that. Let me know if any of the photos are yours and I will credit you. -Bob