Former CBC host Cathy Alex is being remembered for her resounding laughter, love of the outdoors and commitment to the communities she served during her 33-year career.
Alex died on Monday following a years-long battle with multiple myeloma. She was 62. While she entered remission in 2024, her cancer returned this past summer, according to a blog post made by her family.
Born in Regina, Alex spent much of her childhood in Guelph, Ont. She studied human kinetics at the University of Guelph and received her journalism degree from Carleton University in Ottawa.
Her time with CBC Radio began in 1988 and took her to Corner Brook, N.L., Toronto, Windsor, Ont., and Iqaluit before she settled in northwestern Ontario. She spent 25 years with CBC Thunder Bay before retiring in 2021, having taken on various roles as editor, producer, reporter and host.
Alex covered a wide range of stories over the years.
In 2018, the Association of Ontario Midwives presented her with a media award for her coverage of midwifery issues across the province.
“When I first arrived in Thunder Bay, Cathy was one of the veterans at the station, and as a neophyte to journalism, I was in awe of her ability to handle anything thrown her way,” said former CBC Thunder Bay producer Ron Desmoulins.
“She had a great on-air presence, and behind the scenes, she was a fount of information, able to recall or suggest the source or contact for any story you were working on.”
CBC Thunder Bay’s Gord Ellis worked alongside Alex throughout her entire career in the northwest.
“Perhaps the thing I’ll remember most about Cathy was her sense of humour and love of a good laugh,” Ellis said.
Ellis, who formerly hosted a column about the outdoors, recalled a time on air with Alex when he described how painted turtles freeze nearly solid in the winter through a process called brumation. He compared them to Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen head.
“She completely lost it on air, laughing so hard she was in tears and basically unable to speak. It was this openness and realness that made so many listeners love her, and it is what I’ll miss the most,” Ellis said.
Alex’s obituary also describes her many interests, including camping, canoeing, baking, singing, nature walks, reading, gardening and, most of all, swimming.
She also spent her free time giving back to the community. For many years, she organized a reading of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol with local personalities and volunteered annually for the Terry Fox Fun, Desmoulins said.
Alex is survived by her husband Alisdair and two daughters, and her mother, sisters and other family.
The family made a blog post about her passing on Monday.
“This is not how we thought things would go, and certainly not how we wanted things to go,” the post says. “But with that being said, we are so incredibly grateful for the year of remission that we got. We had the chance to make many more memories as a family, and we’ll cherish that forever.
“We also just wanted to take a minute to thank all of the wonderful people who have supported us these last two years. It takes a village and we certainly have a big one.”
A memorial service will be held at Sargent and Sons Funeral Home in Thunder Bay on Jan. 14 starting at 11:30 a.m. ET, her obituary says. The family asks that donations in Alex’s memory be made to either Myeloma Canada or the Northern Cancer Fund.
