One of Hay River’s long-time residents will be missed not only for his volunteer service in the community, but for his dedicated work as a teacher to countless Grade 6 and 7 students.
Peter Osted died in March of this year and a memorial service was held at the Hay River Legion in June to pay respect to the individual who touched many lives through his innovative methods of learning-by-doing.
Vince McKay was one of those students who benefited from Osted’s unconventional but effective teaching style.
“Peter was my Grade 6 teacher and he was a really good teacher and role model,” McKay said. “He was an old-school teacher but he was also fun — he made the best paper airplanes.”
Learning by doing
McKay recalled that Osted taught his students the value of manual labour by getting them involved in such projects as the behind-the-scenes work for the school Christmas concert involving the stage set up, the audio and lighting.
He also remembers vividly the class project that saw Osted oversee the building of a scaled-down replica of the entire Harry Camsell School.
“We would measure a wall and shrink it down to the exact size. For Grade 6, learning (to do) that with math — it was pretty amazing,” he said, adding that the minute details of the building were exact, right down to the bathroom fixtures.
Osted’s daughter, Kate Latour, said her father had a life-long enjoyment of building scaled-down models of a variety of interesting objects.
“There were a group of kids who built kayaks, model trains, kites, puppets and masks,” she said.
As a personal hobby, Osted also built model airplanes and boats, Latour said, adding that he had been adapting model kits to look like ‘things that were used in the North’.
“The kids never realized there were lessons he was teaching the whole time but never knew it,” Latour said.
Characterizing her father as the ‘strong, silent type’, Latour said he wasn’t one for frivolous talk.
“When he took the time to say things, it was because it was really important or really interesting.”
Life-changing events
Latour said she misses her father and the past few years were difficult for him.
Because her mother has dementia, she said her father became her caregiver and as the NWT does not have a retirement residence where couples can live together if one of them has dementia, they finally had to move to Edmonton to remain together after first having their home severely damaged by the flooding in 2022 and then again from the gas explosion that rocked a neighbour’s home later that year, causing total destruction of the Osteds’ house next door.
And in a further sad twist of fate, many of Osted’s model kit creations that had been saved in the flood were subsequently destroyed in the explosion, Latour said.
A lifetime of service
Born in Koge, Denmark in 1940, Osted immigrated into Winnipeg with his family at the age of 14, and eventually met his future wife Margaret while at teacher’s college.
The pair then moved North to Hay River where they began their teaching careers.
During his lifetime in Hay River, he was an avid volunteer in Cadets, and was a founding member of the Hay River Museum Society. He was also a member of the Royal Canadian Legion and he built the torches used for the NWT Track and Field Championships in Hay River. Osted was also instrumental in creating the Yards in Bloom awards in the town.
A father remembered
In his eulogy to his father, Poul Osted described him first and foremost as an exceptional teacher — not only for his classroom students, but for the cadets he trained and for him and Kate.
“My dad was a teacher and all teachers are students. He was always learning he things, and he enjoyed sharing that knowledge with others,” Poul said in his eulogy.
“It becomes pretty evident that my dad was a teacher not just in his job, but in his heart. And the few who got to get the teaching from his heart, can carry on, knowing his lessons will last forever,” he concluded.
McKay, a past president of the Hay River Legion, said lessons taught to him by Osted will indeed remain with him for his lifetime.
“I learned a lot about being involved in the community,” he said. “He touched many lives and in general and it is a huge loss for history and volunteering. He was an all-round genuine nice guy.”
