Juanita Alipao, whose decision to help a Canadian family in the Philippines set her on the path to becoming a legend of Yellowknife’s Filipino community, will be remembered at a celebration of her life this weekend.
Hired to look after the children of the Krupa family on tiny Nonoc Island in the 1970s, Juanita is credited with saving one of the boys’ lives. She formed a bond so strong that the family sponsored her entry to Canada on their return home.
Edmonton might have been adventure enough, but Juanita went north to Yellowknife, taking a job with the Krupas’ extended family at the Flite Deck restaurant inside the NWT capital’s airport.
Later, she somehow ran both a day home and a baking emporium from a tiny a studio apartment at the city’s Northern United Place. All the while, she helped generations of Filipino families to settle in the North and stay connected with their culture.
“She was an overarching mother figure for people within the community,” said Jovi Yip, one of her granddaughters.
“She was electric, full of life, vibrant. She just lit up the room. She was always so positive and she brought people together.”
A celebration of life will be held at Northern United Place on Saturday, January 31 from 4pm.
People who knew her are welcome to “come honour her spirit and eat delish Filipino food,” Yip said.
‘The waves got too big’
Juana Plaza Alipao was born in the region of the Philippines’ Surigao City on March 28, 1940. She was one of 13 children.
To many people, she was known as Juanita. Some in the Filipino community called her Nanay – or mother – and to her grandchildren, she was Lola.
A journey that would take her to Yellowknife began more than half a century ago, when engineer John Krupa, wife Lois and their family moved from Alberta to the Philippines for a job helping to develop a nickel mine.
To John Krupa junior, who now lives in BC, one of the most memorable aspects of his dad’s change of office was the treacherous channel between their home island and the community that housed the local market.
“Juanita would go across this channel once a week to get the food we needed,” he recalled.
That channel sparks two memories for John. The first is Juanita’s extraordinary ability to combine local and Canadian tastes so the kids would eat – “we were a starch and beet family, we weren’t used to eating mostly fish” – and the second is the day his brother Rick’s life was in danger.
The family had a 10-foot boat with one outrigger. It wasn’t always a match for conditions in the channel.
“They went out too deep, my dad and another boy and Rick,” John recalled. “The waves got too big and it was swamped, and the tide was rushing them out.”
Back on the shore, the ex-pats “were having beers and having a grand old time,” he said, and nobody noticed the dangerous situation unfolding on the boat – except Juanita.
“She called it to their attention and a rescue was launched,” said John. Rick and the others were brought safely to shore. “They could have drowned out there.”
Pastries in the luggage
By the mid-1970s, the Krupa family was heading back to Edmonton. But that didn’t mean the end of Juanita’s bond with them.
Instead, the Krupas decided to sponsor Juanita’s immigration to Canada. She boarded flights from the Philippines to Edmonton clutching a one-way ticket so she could continue working for the family.
Soon, with the kids old enough that the Krupas didn’t need a nanny, Juanita was looking for more work. In the summer of 1977, it transpired that Lois Krupa’s sister, Sandra, needed help at the Flite Deck restaurant and gift shop she operated at Yellowknife Airport.
“She just fit right in and almost took over the back kitchen at that restaurant,” the younger John Krupa said. “She was a top-notch short order cook.”
Juanita made an impression with her clubhouse sandwiches from the Flite Deck kitchen, but that paled in comparison with the legacy she would build as a baker in a northern city whose Filipino community was just planting its first roots.
“By the time she stopped working at Flite Deck she was just baking up a storm in her little apartment,” said Jessy-Anne Jimenez, who was looked after by Juanita as a child and went on to become one of Juanita’s closest friends and carers in her final years.
“She would bake crazy amounts of Filipino baked goods. She was the first one to make Filipino baked goods in Yellowknife and have it become popular,” said Jimenez.
The Alipao menu included a sweet coconut-filled bread, pastries with shredded cheese named ensaymada, fried donuts known as pilipit, empanadas and steamed buns.
“For her to replicate such childhood memories for these Filipinos that immigrated to Canada was a huge deal. It really put her name on the map,” said Jimenez. “Everyone was constantly asking for the same five baked goods she did.”
The security guards at Northern United Place would regularly receive free samples from Juanita, Jimenez said.
Yip, her granddaughter, remembers Juanita stuffing baked goods into her purse when she tried to leave the apartment.
“Every time I would leave to go back to Edmonton, she would want me to bring pastries in my luggage,” she said.
‘She met all of my boyfriends’
For Yip, Juanita was more than a grandma and a supplier of tasty treats. The two lived together for years in that tiny apartment as Yip navigated complicated family dynamics.
“I moved in with her first when I was 11 years old and then moved back in with her at the age of 13, permanently. I lived with her from then on, all throughout my teenage years,” said Yip. “Then I would leave for university, come back for the summers and Christmas and holidays, and stay with her.”
This meant the apartment was home to both of them. When Yip wanted sleepovers, Juanita would give up her bed and sleep on the sofa. They would watch reality TV together and hockey games, Juanita becoming a diehard Oilers fan through her brief link to Edmonton.
“She met all of my boyfriends from high school and beyond and she would ask about them, even after we broke up,” said Yip.
“She cared so deeply about what was happening in my life and wanted to have a connection with me and my friends.”
Juanita had a daughter, Josephine, who died in 2023 at the age of 60. At that point, Yip had left the NWT and her main point of contact with Juanita became Jimenez, who visited her multiple times a week at the Avens seniors’ residence and in hospital.
By that time, Juanita had been diagnosed with dementia.
“She became a part of my daily schedule. I got so used to seeing her almost every week, multiple times a week,” said Jimenez.
“To see someone so strong and independent – to witness that deterioration – was really hard. But I was proud of her for being stubborn, like her usual self, and hanging on until she couldn’t.”
Rick Krupa managed to visit Juanita in Yellowknife while spending time flying for Buffalo Airways.
Unsure where to find her, he went to the hospital and located her room.
“I looked at her and said, ‘Juanita?’ and there was this big smile on her face. I’m sure she recognized me. It was tear-jerking,” he said. “It was wonderful.”
Juanita’s legacy
Juanita passed away peacefully on November 27, 2025 at the age of 85.
Her family said she is survived by her sister Maria Sol, brother Falaviano, granddaughters Jovi and Jelian, grandson Michael and great-grandson Atlas, as well as many nieces and nephews.
“She was my caretaker, and then I became hers later on,” said Jimenez, who credits Juanita with helping to inspire her own food business in Yellowknife.
“I admired her for how efficiently she did an abundance of baked goods and made them good, and that’s kind-of my standard – to efficiently make food orders or baked goods the way that she did,” Jimenez added.
“She was one of the stepping stones for a lot of Filipino people to show our culture with food to everyone in Yellowknife. After her, there were more Filipinos that had confidence to show their culinary talents. To me, that’s huge.
“Her legacy will never die. As cheesy as it sounds, that’s just how crazy an impact she had on the Filipino community.”
