Patricia Eleanor Kohler

“If you ever need a helping hand, it is at the end of your arm.
As you get older you must remember you have a second hand.
The first one is to help yourself.
The second hand is to help others.”
- Audrey Hepburn

Patricia bundles up extra warm on this particular March morning before heading out the door. It’s -35 Celsius with the wind chill in Whitehorse. “Imagine that,” she muses aloud as she locks her door of her 3rd floor condo. “Winter just won’t give up on us yet.” But she smiles knowingly as she saunters down the hallway. After 40 winters she knows the long days of winter are “numbered,” now that spring is around the corner. Mornings like this will be soon replaced with the long, wonderful days of spring and summer ahead.

Patricia Kohler is 86 and she loves life. Unlike some of us, who tend to hide away during the winter, Patricia refuses to let the elements keep her inside. Besides, she’s got stuff to do. First thing on Tuesday’s agenda is to make her way across 4th Avenue from her downtown Whitehorse home to the Golden Age Complex at Sport Yukon. It’s just past 7:30 a.m. (the first Tuesday of the month) and the foot clinic awaits. And it needs her help. For the past 18 years Patricia is usually the first volunteer there every month and the last to leave.

The clinic is instrumental in helping prevent foot problems for seniors by offering a free podiatry clinic once a month. It’s run by the Yukon Order of Pioneers (YOOP) Ladies’ Auxiliary. Thanks to funding through the Yukon Government, nurses and health care practitioners and dozens of volunteers descend on the Golden Age Complex to hold the monthly clinic. Patricia’s job is key to making sure this clinic takes place.

“I’ve been at this for 18 years,” she notes. “I used to go in every morning but I can’t move the tables myself anymore, so now we set it up the night before. It’s important to set it up right so everything runs smoothly.” She adds, “Yes, there’s always glitches, but we always figure it out. We get it done every time.”

Patricia, who has been retired for 21 years, has always volunteered her time towards helping others. Even now that she’s well into her 80s she remains extremely active—if you see her at events at the Golden Age Society or the Anglican Church, or at teas, raffles, bake sales, and potluck dinners, believe me, she’s not just there to look pretty. She’s working as a volunteer to make sure the event happens in the first place.

Patricia Eleanor Kohler was born December 3, 1933, on a farm-owned cattle ranch outside of Keremeos, a village in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. The name Keremeos originates from the Similkameen dialect of the Okanagan language where the word “Keremeyeus” means “creek which cuts its way through the flats” referring to the Keremeos Creek which flows down from the Upper Benchlands to the Similkameen River that runs by the village. Local legend claims the name means “the meeting of the winds” and the joke is that the only time it’s calm is when the wind blows equally from all four directions.

“The ranch just so happened to have 50 acres of orchards, too,” Patricia recalls fondly, adding it was on this farm that at an early age she developed both her strong work ethic and natural acceptance that helping others is “just part and parcel of life.” Her mother who died at the age of 56, was also a dedicated volunteer.

Patricia would ride her bike around her farming neighbourhood selling Christmas cards to raise money for the Anglican Women’s Association. “I remember that they were $1 a box of 20 cards,” she said. “I sold a lot of cards.” She also remembers that when she started school the war had just started and she would help sell Red Cross news magazines. “I’d pedal up and down our road and sell them. One man would buy them and always asked, ‘What’s in this issue?’ When I didn’t know, he said he wanted me to go back and learn what was in the papers I was selling, so I had to learn.”

Patricia went on to marry and have four children, working alongside her husband at the ranch and orchard. The farm also had 500 bee colonies, which she took care of. “I got my trucking license when I was expecting my first child. I drove a truck up and down that highway,” she recalls, “transporting fruits and vegetables from the farm. Life was busy.”

She eventually separated from her husband and, after the children were grown, decided a change of scene was in order. She was in Abbotsford picking strawberries for a living when, at 40, she met a Yukoner who convinced her that Alaska and the Yukon might just be what she was looking for.

“I went all through Alaska trying to get on the pipeline and no one would tackle me, except in the offices as a clerk, and I wanted to work in the camps,” she says, noting she eventually made her way to Whitehorse.

“I arrived in 1971 when the boats burned down,” she recalls. “Twenty minutes later I was cooking at the Travelodge and cleaning buses for Atlas Travel.”

Whitehorse, as it was for many who moved here in the 1970s, was a city with a lot to offer and was quick to become the place to give Patricia the new start she was looking for. Her skills at driving a truck for her family business paid off and she didn’t waste time turning her job of cleaning buses into a position of driving them. After going to Edmonton for the summer to get a license and some practical experience (She ran the shuttle service from downtown Edmonton to the airport.) she was quick to return to the Yukon, and begin what would become a pretty steady and lucrative career as a bus driver. In no time at all she was driving tour buses to all corners of the Yukon for Atlas Travel.

Patricia also joined the ranks of the many courageous women who formed the Mini Bus Transit system in Whitehorse. It was created by a group of enterprising women who were concerned over the lack of public transit for young mothers living in the rural reaches of town, and decided to do something about it. Their efforts resulted in a bus system being established with five Fleury mini-buses, painted bright lime green in order to be able to be seen clearly on a snowy winter day. The system was founded in 1975 and became so successful that the city took over the service in 1981.

“When we started those buses the pay was $5 per hour for a four-hour shift. I liked the morning so did that shift,” she says, “and if someone didn’t want the afternoon shift, I grabbed it, too.”

Patricia also worked many camp jobs doing what she loved: cooking. It was here that she met her second husband, Ted Feser. He was a twice-married widower with two children, one of whom was handicapped. They married and they spent many wonderful years together in Porter Creek.

Feser, who was a driller for the federal government, also volunteered many years alongside Patricia ensuring the Elk’s Lodge famous steak dinners and other popular events became a reality.

The couple also enjoyed travelling extensively when they retired—cruises abroad, and a trip through the Panama Canal where Patricia’s grandfather had worked and died of malaria. The couple had many adventures together leaving fond memories that she carries with her to today. Unfortunately, Ted died in 2005 at the age of 72.

“Patricia is the volunteer’s volunteer,” says Doug MacLean, who, many will know, is also a valuable and dedicated volunteer in Whitehorse. He says that without volunteers like Patricia many popular events wouldn’t be possible. “For example, without Patricia the newspapers, would not be available at the front door. It’s always nice, too, to be greeted by Patricia on cribbage days. She is good at what she does and an example for us all on how to do it.”

What is her secret? “I’ve been looking after people all my life. I’ve looked after so many people here, the cemetery is full,” she admits somewhat sadly. “But what are you going to do? When I was a kid I was taught the right way to do things. You wash windows with vinegar and newspapers, you don’t complain, and you like life and believe in others.”

Is there a secret to her longevity? “It’s simple,” she says. “Just keep moving. I walk and keep busy. I see what happens to people who don’t walk. I don’t want to end up like that.”