Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 13/02) - There are likely few people who lived in Yellowknife during the late 1980s through the late 1990s who didn't get a taste of Patrick Kane's cooking.

Award-winning chef Patrick Kane was an avid angler. He caught this Arctic char on a trip to the Tree River in 1989. Kane succumbed to prostate cancer, Oct. 31. He was 54. - photo courtesy of Sandra Neis

The award-winning chef cooked in about every fine dining restaurant in Yellowknife during his tenure up North. Kane died Oct. 31 in Kelowna, B.C., at age 54.

Perhaps Kane's finest hour in the kitchen came in 1998 when he and three other Northern chefs captured gold at the Coupe des Nations culinary competition in Quebec City.

The NWT Culinary Team, made up of chefs Kane, Pierre LePage, John MacDonald and Mark Plouffe, beat out teams from across Canada and 12 other countries to claim the honour.

"When he spoke about food he spoke about it with passion," says Plouffe, who worked with him at the Explorer Hotel during the early 1990s.

"People like that sort of gravitate towards each other. You know, you get two hockey lovers in a room and they're crazy. Patrick was sort of like that about food. He always had good ideas."

Kane, originally from Saskatchewan, is survived by his parents, John and Laurel, five sisters, four brothers, daughter Shannon, and grandson Benjamin.

"He was the oldest in the family. He led with a pretty strong example," says younger brother Gerry of Armstrong, B.C. "He put us in line. He made sure we knew what was going on, and what was right ... He had a big heart."

After 11 years in the North, Kane moved down to Kelowna to be with his family in 1999. By then, he was battling prostate cancer.

About 18 months ago, Kane discovered he had a daughter and a grandson -- both of whom he had never met.

When Shannon Knudson gave birth to a son, she wanted to know more about her father's side of the family. When she discovered Kane's parents living in Kelowna, she found her father there as well.

"It was a pretty intense meeting," Knudson recalls, who lives in Richmond, B.C. "It was very friendly, but of course quite emotionally loaded."

Nonetheless, Kane spent as much time as he could with his new found family during the last months of his life.

Knudson says family members plan to come to Yellowknife next summer to pay tribute to Kane, and his love for the North.

"He talked a lot about how much he enjoyed the fishing up there," says Knudson. "Just all about the time he spent outdoors, and about how warm he found the community."