Janet Anderson Craig Peterson (born on May 3, 1937,[1] in Strathaven, Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a Scottish-Canadian non-fiction writer, historian, artist, and journalist.
She has written books about Vancouver Island, including those about the cities of Nanaimo and Port Alberni.
[4] She attended Kingston Business College before taking a secretarial position at Queen's University.
[6] After moving to the Alberni Valley, Peterson got involved in the local arts and culture scene.
Primarily a collection of Scottish rhymes, proverbs, and folklore, the book also includes stories from her own family's history.
[10] Peterson's next book, Kilts on the Coast: The Scots Who Built BC, published in 2012, profiles Scottish settlers, including James Douglas, William Fraser Tolmie, and Robert Dunsmuir, who came to Vancouver Island in 1848–1854 primarily to work in the Hudson's Bay Company's fur trade and coal mining ventures.
The book closely follows the life of Mark Bate, covering not only his years acting as the manager of Nanaimo's first coal mine but also his sixteen terms as city mayor.