SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A doctor who started her practice in Yellowknife was one of six people killed Sunday in a float plane crash in British Columbia.

Dr. Kerry Telford worked as a general practitioner in Yellowknife for five years, beginning in the late 1990s. She died in a plane crash in B.C. on Sunday, along with her infant daughter. - Cindy MacDouall/NNSL photo

Kerry Telford, 41, worked as a general practitioner for five years in Yellowknife from the late 1990s to the earlier part of this decade. At the time of her death, she was working at the South Community Birth Program in Vancouver, training students in midwifery.

Telford's six-month-old daughter Sarah also died in the crash.

She and her daughter were among eight people aboard a float plane that crashed during takeoff from Saturna Island, one of B.C.'s Gulf Islands. Only the pilot and a female passenger survived.

Telford leaves behind her husband, Patrick Morrissey, and a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Claire.

Two local friends remember her as a caring individual.

Jodi Woollam, who had known Telford for 14 years, learned of her death through common friends.

"I've had a really dear friend die and I didn't expect that," she said. "I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to her and actually I don't want to believe that she's gone."

She described Telford as special; a person who always remained optimistic while helping others.

"This is the person that went down to Peru to save babies in the Amazon," she said. "This is a person that worked in the AIDS clinic in east Vancouver. "She was a joyous person and she spread joy. She was magnetic. People felt good about themselves when they were around Kerry."

Telford volunteered for nine months in Peru as part of an exchange through the Rotary Club, and returned annually for the last nine years. She also worked since 2001 at the Bridge Clinic for refugees in Vancouver. Longtime friend Austin Marshall said he has fond memories of Telford, whom he met through the Rotary Club.

"Kerry was a wonderful doctor and very much a caring, warm-hearted person," he said. "She had real sincere interest in the people that were around her, both her patients and people that she knew outside of her practice.

"My memories of her was a person who was full of life, full of compassion and just an ideal person as a doctor. "

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada and the RCMP are investigating the circumstances of the crash.