JK Bakery Co-founder John Kirchpfennig Dies at 82, Remembered for a Lifetime of Giving

Longtime Canmore baker and JK Bakery co-founder John Otto Kirchpfennig, who helped feed the people and animals of Canmore for decades, died on August 23 at the age of 82.

For years, whenever Darci Homan-Green, owner of Kake by Darci, trimmed the tops off a wedding cake, she wrapped them up and set them aside. Kirchpfennig would come by for coffee, take them and make sure they ended up somewhere, with “all random people, all walks of life,” Homan-Green said.

Nothing went to waste.

This week, for the first time, she threw them in the garbage instead.

“Today I threw them out, because I've been so sad. I'm sure I'll find homes for them, but right now I'm just a broken person,” Homan-Green said. “Everyone knows him for giving away cake tops. If it wasn't from my bakery, it was from Helen's, and if it wasn't from Helen's, it was from JK Bakery back in the day. Nothing ever went to waste.”

It was one small example of Kirchpfennig’s generosity, community spirit and unwillingness to waste anything, a pattern that runs through nearly every story people tell about him.

“I feel like he would give anyone his shirt off his back,” Homan-Green said. “He would come by and have a coffee and I would say, ‘I need this mixer moved,’ and he would go get a gang of guys, like three guys, to come and move my mixer for me. So he just is just a really kind soul, and really giving.”

Born in Munich, Germany, in 1943, those closest to Kirchpfennig believe his generosity came in part from a difficult childhood living through the scarcity and danger of the Second World War.

“When somebody bombs your home and your whole environment, you have to scrounge around all the time trying to find something you can use, so you can maybe help somebody else with it, whether it's food or anything,” said Helen Silvestroff, Kirchpfennig’s longtime partner and co-founder of JK Bakery. “So he had it ingrained in his nature that we always have to be looking out for the person who might not have what you've got to give.”

Kirchpfennig trained as a baker in Europe before emigrating to Canada around 1965. He began his life in Western Canada repairing bakery equipment in Prince George before moving to Vernon, where he married Marika Skubiak and kept horses on an acreage.

After his 18-year marriage ended, he moved to Alberta, first to Edmonton and then Calgary. It was during that time that he discovered and fell in love with Canmore. He began working at IGA and made Canmore his full-time home in the late 1980s.

On Canada Day in 1994, he and Silvestroff opened JK Bakery as a small retail bakery in Shaman Lane on Main Street. About a year later, they moved into a newly built space on Railway Avenue, where the bakery’s main location remains today, and focused more on wholesale baking.

For years, they sold bread to major Banff hotels, including the Rimrock and Banff Park Lodge. The small La Pause Cafe at the front of the shop served soup and sandwiches and became a gathering place for friends and other business owners in the then-new strip mall.

Kirchpfennig was up early to bake every morning but still spent his afternoons at Canmore Ranch feeding horses, helping out and talking history with ranch owner and good friend John “Buck” Kaleta.

He also started charitable initiatives the bakery continues today, from donating gift cards and food to local charity and community events to providing bread to a school in Mînî Thnî. He even saved bread crusts and scraps for a rescue service to help feed stray dogs.

In 2010, Kirchpfennig and Silvestroff sold the bakery to its current owners, Samantha and Doug McConnery, and retired. But that didn’t stop him from keeping baker’s hours or sharing his baking around town.

“Often he would come in and get apple pie filling, so he could keep making apple strudel for his neighbours and his friends. He was still very generous in that way,” Samantha McConnery said.

His charity was rarely organized. More often, it was spontaneous and personal.

“There was a homeless man around town last year, an elderly guy, a senior, and John had him sleeping on his couch, and was trying to find him a place at the YWCA in Banff,” Homan-Green said. “He was just, all around, a really good dude.”

During the 2013 Bow River flood, Silvestroff found herself with a flooded basement and no power to run the pumps.

“I called John to see whether he had power or not, whether it was just my house. And the dear soul, he actually turned up at two in the morning with a phenomenal generator in the back of his truck,” Silvestroff said. “I don't know how much it weighed, but I tell you, he must have picked up that generator and put it in the back of his truck by himself.”

Kirchpfennig rigged up the generator so she could pump the water out.

“He sorted out my problem in the middle of the night, without having anybody else to help him, and I thought that was amazing,” Silvestroff said.

In retirement, Kirchpfennig continued spending much of his time at Canmore Ranch, taking on a self-appointed volunteer job.

Flint Simpson, the current owner of Canmore Ranch, bought the place from the Kaleta family in 2004 and inherited John along with it.

“When we bought the place, I found out he comes and sees the horses every day, gives them a couple of hay cubes. He became a fixture for us, not on any kind of payroll, not because we needed him, but because he wanted to be part of it,” Simpson said.

“He'd do everything from trail riding, because he liked the horses so much, to backcountry work getting ready for pack trips. I'd go get hay in Cremona and he'd come along. I taught him to check the fences, make sure none of the horses were injured. We'd see him almost daily.”

But Silvestroff feels any account of Kirchpfennig’s life would be incomplete without mentioning his temper and idiosyncrasies. Simpson said there was even a nickname for that side of him.

“We called him the ciabatta bun, because he was a baker, a little crusty on the outside, but really warm and soft on the inside,” Simpson said.

That crust wasn't just for show.

“He wasn't without his temper tantrums, may I point out. Everybody seems to overlook that,” Silvestroff said. “But his friends might have harsh words with him and forget about it within two minutes, because his generosity and his fun side were really a lot more important.”

And then there was his smile.

“He had a beautiful smile. I’ve been looking for days, looking at umpteen photographs of him. The slightest provocation, he’d give you this brilliant smile and that was enough to melt you down,” Silvestroff said.

Another of Kirchpfennig’s quirks was the way he spoke. Simpson gave the example, “That’s really how the water runs down the bridge,” and said he plans to compile some of Kirchpfennig’s favourite phrases and mix-ups.

“The way he talked, it was a mixture of German and English,” Silvestroff said. “He thought this was perfect English, but it certainly wasn't. Everybody knew what he was saying anyway. You don't correct him, because it's funny.”

“You know, he came to Canada in ’66 or something, and by the time he passed on, he certainly had not made that much progress in English. Oh yeah, I miss him. I tell you, I miss him, but anyway that’s life for you.”

According to his online obituary, a celebration of Kirchpfennig’s life will be held at Canmore Ranch on September 20 at 3 p.m., where friends will gather “to share memories, stories and fun episodes from John’s life, and to raise a glass and toast to his memory.”

Even in his final wishes, Kirchpfennig’s values come through.

“John did not wish for flowers. Instead, those wishing to honour his memory are invited to plant a tree in his name somewhere beautiful,” his obituary reads.

“I think he just literally spent every minute of every day thinking about someone else, not thinking about himself,” Homan-Green said.