The Weilmoringle Kid

Brian Pettit grew up on a small poultry farm near Sydney, Australia. A high school scholarship helped him gain a teaching certificate, which led in turn to his first assignment at the desolate, fly-ridden, outback sheep station known as Weilmoringle. The uniquely pioneering aspect of having to build the school first, as well as those years with the Aboriginals was the subject of his first novel The Weilmoringle Kid. In 1965, Pettit and two friends sailed to Canada to have a look around. There, as their parents lamented, the boys forgot to come home. Pettit worked in northern British Columbia at Topley, then in a logging camp on Vancouver Island before accepting a teaching appointment in Nanaimo. He completed a B.Ed and M.Ed at the University of Victoria, getting involved with the Canada Studies Foundation and writing the thesis: Canadian Nationalism: with what are we to identify ourselves? The proposal developed curriculum to help Canadian students develop an affectionate knowledge of their country. Now retired after 23 years as an elementary school principal, Pettit has been President of the Nanaimo Historical Society as well as an instructor at Elder College and guest speaker for service clubs, mostly profiling those who made the country great.