On Thursday, April 16, 1998, Julian Szeicz lost his life in a snow avalanche, near Watson Lake in the Yukon, Canada. The accident happened while he was doing field work with two graduate students, both of whom survived.

Dr Barbara Zeeb, Julian's wife, received the news at their home in Kingston, Ontario.

Julian completed his PhD in 1994 with Dr Glen MacDonald at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, on climate change and vegetation dynamics at the subarctic tree line in NW Canada. During 1994-1995, he was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he conducted research in southern Chile. In 1995, he joined the Department of Geography, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He received an award for excellence in teaching, published actively, and gave twenty conference addresses. He quickly developed an international reputation in the field of paleoenvironmental reconstruction and analysis, with research collaborations in Canada, U.S.A., U.K., Australia, Chile, and Argentina.

Julian married Barb Zeeb in September 1997. Barb is a paleolimnologist who completed her PhD on chrysophyte cysts with John Smol, at PEARL, Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. She is presently on staff with the Environmental Sciences Group, at the Royal Military College, Kingston, and an adjunct assistant professor at Queen's University, Department of Biology.

They made many friends, both in the Kingston area and in the scientific community at large.

We have lost an important friend and colleague.

A scholarship fund is currently being arranged.

John P. Smol
Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory (PEARL)
Department of Biology, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada

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Notes: This article appeared in CAP Newsletter 21(1):7, 1998.
The Canadian Association of Geographers has established the The Julian M. Szeicz Award. This award has been preented annually since 2003.