Wildlife Biologist and Photographer, Researcher, Educator
Lover of cats – big and small
Garnet died suddenly on January 31, 2025, leaving Jan Atkinson-Grosjean – his partner of 40 years, family, friends and colleagues shocked and bereft. He was busy chopping firewood one day and gone the next. The cause of death was septic shock. It was a fast, peaceful passing with family beside him the whole time.
Sincere thanks to fire chief Christopher Carleton and his team in Point Roberts, and the emergency department staff at St. Joseph’s PeaceHealth Hospital in Bellingham. Everything that could be done was done, and those close to him know that he would have preferred this outcome – active and engaged until the last minute, then a speedy exit.
Garnet first undertook field work in Kenya in the early 1970s and maintained a lifelong connection to the country’s conservation areas, returning often for photographic safaris after retiring from his faculty position at the University of British Columbia (UBC). His lion images from these trips won awards. Jan and family will scatter his ashes there, in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, this time next year – when he’d planned to return once again.
He and Jan discovered Point Roberts in 1988, built a modest home, and have lived here part- and full-time since. He loved the place, finding great contentment in pottering, building, chopping wood, and caring for a colony of feral cats.
There will be no funeral, but we will celebrate the life of this warm, wonderful, gifted, and much-loved man in spring 2025. Date and location to be announced later.
