Ken de la Barre’s positive approach to life grew out of his tough beginnings | Canada Voices

Kenneth Lucien de la Barre: Optimist. Humanist. Scholar. Boulevardier. Born May 4, 1932, in Montreal; died May 8, 2026, in Whitehorse, of natural causes; aged 94.

Ken’s early life was shaped on the streets of Montreal. He recounted often how he and his older brother Buster were “too poor to have a daddy” and embellished the story with tales of escape from rooming houses due to unpaid rent, taxi rides with all of life’s belongings and warm memories of their mother, Peggy de la Barre, from Glasgow, who struggled to keep her boys out of foster homes, and was known for smoking up a storm and enjoying a good rye and ginger.

It’s a mystery how Ken’s rose-coloured approach to life was born from such beginnings. Yet during his last year, his good humour even permeated his descent into dementia.

Sports were central to shaping Ken’s character and resilience. Among his many accolades, he was listed in the Montreal Herald newspaper as a high scorer for the Vagabonds basketball team in 1952. He spent weekends skiing in the Laurentians with a gang whom he remained friends with until they all predeceased him.

Patricia, the love of his life, died in 2002 at 65. Ken was five years older than Pat and he had known her his whole life. Her mum was also a young Scottish migrant, just like Peggy, and the two single mothers (with marriages that fell apart during wartime) waitressed together in Montreal, sharing friendship and family along the way. Pat McKimm and Ken married in 1956.

After the birth of their first child, Suzanne, Ken spent his evenings getting his Bachelor of Commerce at Sir George Williams University, realizing in the last semester before graduating that he did not want to be an accountant. During this time, the couple’s second daughter, Tracy, was born.

Ken earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1967 and developed a lifelong passion for the North while employed by the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA). He was the director in Montreal until the organization relocated to Alberta in 1976.

When their girls were in elementary school, Pat and Ken had a son, Michel. In the 1970s, the family camped from Montreal to Yukon where Ken worked at AINA’s research station at Kluane Lake. These excursions would lead both his daughters to permanently make Yukon their home. Pat and Ken joined their daughters in 1996 when a grandchild was due. They planned on staying a year but built a life based in Whitehorse with multiple trips back to Montreal each year.

At 56, Ken completed a master’s in Human Geography at McGill University. He pursued other careers including working with Katimavik, Canada’s national youth program, for which he received a Commemorative Medal from the Governor-General, and projects that spanned demography research in the Arctic regions, to community development in British Columbia and overseas. He worked into his early 80s as an occasional adviser to the Cree Outfitting and Tourism Association in northern Quebec.

Into his 90s, Ken held court at a Whitehorse café where he read his paper and talked to all who sat near him (his extra-hot latte was always waiting). He had regular stops on his daily walks around town, always wearing his famous floppy hat and accompanied by his ski pole walking stick. He was known for crashing any conference on any topic held in town.

Those who knew Ken best would note his inability to share his feelings, which often translated into his lack of awareness for the feelings of others. Despite this, Ken’s three children each had a special friendship with their father; with Suzanne he shared an interest in travel, arts and culture, and careers in human geography; with Tracy he shared daily life while living next to her family; and he and Michel bonded over the love they had for Montreal, his family and playing a variety of sports, first against one another and later with one another.

Ken was an engaged and kind person, who believed, in spite of any bad news that came his way, that the world was a beautiful place and that he was lucky to be alive.

Suzanne de la Barre is Ken’s eldest daughter.

To submit a Lives Lived: lives@globeandmail.com

Lives Lived celebrates the everyday, extraordinary, unheralded lives of Canadians who have recently passed. To learn how to share the story of a family member or friend, go to tgam.ca/livesguide.

You can find obituaries from The Globe and Mail here.

To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com.