Whether you met Coleen distributing food at Yellowknife’s Food Bank or heard her laughter at a community gathering, Coleen’s warmth touched the lives of many Yellowknifers.
Born February 2, 1950 in Scarborough, Ontario, Coleen Laura McClean first moved to the North in 1980, where she lived in Fort Good Hope. She then studied at Aurora College’s Thebacha Campus in Fort Smith, and later worked in the Eastern Arctic and then Yellowknife.
Coleen passed away surrounded by her family at Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife on August 29, 2024, at 74 years old.
A loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and wife, Coleen will be missed by her family, friends, and community.
Known for her humour, good-nature, beadwork, and love of storytelling, Coleen will be missed on camping trips to Fred Henne Territorial Park, family holidays, and drives to sit at the water.
“She’s hard-working, outgoing, someone you can trust to talk to, she just loved talking to people,” Coleen’s daughter Kelly Wilke said. “She gets along well with people.”
“She’s very loving,” daughter Kimberly Hodge said. “She’d give advice and try and be empathetic … and she loved doing it.”
Coleen worked for the Yellowknife Food Bank for the last 10 years, where she organized food distribution services to residents. Wilke said clients at the food bank came to know and respect her mother as she was understanding and caring in her interactions with people.
“She just knew how to talk to the homeless [clients] and a lot of them just loved her to pieces for the way she respected them,” Wilke said. “She was an outgoing person, she loved joking.”
Coleen is survived by her husband Laity Cham; children Kelly, Kim, Sydney, and Tyron; her grandchildren Naiomi, Erika, Michelle, Tanisha, Shilah, and Damin; and her great-grandchildren Zeike, Ayla, Xander, Kenneth, Kingsley, and Kolton.
“She was a fantastic woman, a good mother, and a very good neighbour,” Cham said. “You cannot have anyone replace her because you know where she stands with her family.”
Coleen now joins her late daughter Ashley, who passed away in Yellowknife in 2009.
“My mom was absolutely crushed when Ashley passed … She talks about Ashley all the time,” Wilke said. “I know that she’s so happy probably right now just to be with Ashley and with her mom and dad.”
Coleen’s husband Cham said she had a big heart and would do everything in her power to help her family, which has left him with fond memories to look back on.
“Even when you meet her on her dying bed, you know that she is a very strong woman,” Cham said. “She is somebody who would stand for herself, fight for herself, and fight for her community.”
Coleen was devoted to her community until the end. Cham recalled seeing Coleen make phone calls during her final days to ensure food was delivered to Yellowknifers.
“She was somebody who came to fulfill a mission and she did the mission,” Cham said.
He said there were times when she would use her money to buy office equipment for the Food Bank so they could print flyers and schedules.
“She said, “I have to do it because the food bank, we have no sponsors. So, I have to take from my money,”” Cham recalled Coleen saying. “She sacrificed a lot. She was a good person.”
“She was making sure that people ate. If people didn’t know the food bank existed, who is running it, at any cost, even when she was sick, she will make sure … that Saturday is successful.”
The Yellowknife Food Bank normally provides groceries to residents every second Saturday.
“She just liked to talk and help people as much as she could, give them resources,” Hodge said. “She was good at telling stories of what she would remember from years ago or from last week, and she’d joke around and laugh about the smallest things.”
“Even to the end, she still smiled and tried to laugh. I’m glad because that’s a memory that we’ll keep forever.”
