Christine Futter

Futter – Christine

Christine Futter passed away peacefully on Thursday 26 Aug 2021.

Christine grew up in Yorkshire, England. In her youth, she was a champion runner and hurdler who competed in many British and international athletic competitions. A highlight of her athletics career was representing Great Britain at the World University Games in Paris in 1957. She was adventurous and hitchhiked across Europe at 17 with a girlfriend, with her best memories of the Black Forest in Germany where she found the German word for ‘perhaps’ very useful when not understanding the locals and wanting to avoid saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

She studied Russian at university in London. In 1969, Christine and her young family arrived in Quebec City on the ‘Empress of Canada’, one of the last transatlantic steamers to dock in Canada.

After setting in Ottawa, Christine obtained the first PhD in Linguistics from the University of Ottawa. After her PhD, she did ground breaking research in Linguistics that was published in the journal ‘Brain and Language’. This important research has been quoted many times in linguistic studies.

Afterwards, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Ottawa and wrote textbooks under the ‘With One Stone’ banner which have been used in First Nations communities across Canada and have helped many new Canadians to learn English and the Canadian system.

She is a member of CFUW (Canadian Federation of University Women) and member of their Book-Group. Christine loved to read and carried her books, and later her e-book, everywhere.

The environment has always been important to Christine. She is a committed member of Nature Conservancy, and owns a piece of the Alfred bog in an attempt to protect wetlands.

Gliding was a central part of Christine’s life. She learned to fly open-cockpit gliders in Bicester, England and flew in the early 1960s. She joined the Gatineau Gliding Club in 1980 with her two sons, Martyn and Nicholas. Christine owned and flew two gliders over many years: a Skylark-4 and a Libelle. The SkyLark-4 was her favorite.

As well as being a skilled pilot in her own right, she crewed for Nick, her partner for 35 years, in Provincial, National and International Gliding competitions, and was twice the Team Captain for the Canadian Gliding Team, first in St-Auban, France and later in Bayreuth, Germany. Christine was recognized and appreciated for her clear voice on the radio when controlling the start and finish lines at many Canadian gliding contests.

Dedicated mother and grandmother, she is survived by her life-partner Nick Bonnière, and two sons, Martyn and Nicholas, and grandson Edward.