John LeBlanc at his retirement party saying his farewell
John LeBlanc, associate professor emeritus of English and Cultural Studies, died suddenly on October 30, 2023 at his home in Vancouver, a city he adored.
Born Armand John LeBlanc in 1952 in North Sydney, NS, he was educated at St. Francis Xavier and U Calgary where he completed a PhD in English in 1990. He came “down the road” to Alberta in 1977. He worked in postcolonial studies, on writers from the Caribbean (Jean Rhys, Derek Walcott). He was hired at OUC (now UBCO) in 1990 and retired in 2014. He was a dedicated colleague and teacher, and was one of the founders of UBCO’s Cultural Studies program. He had a wonderful retirement, creating a film discussion group for the UBCO Emeritus College over Covid, contributing to Vancouver’s International Film Society, leading walks for the Canadian Company of Pilgrims on the southern Gulf Islands. He had just returned from an 800 km trek on the Camino at the end of September, his third Camino, and was planning Mount Blanc in France next year.
A Maritimer to the core, where his Scots and French roots are deep, his ashes will be interred next summer back home with his people. A burial service will take place next summer in North Sydney, Nova Scotia at the family graveyard plot.