Kind strangers help Yukon woman bury her father in favourite team's ball cap
Teaka Lewis-Clark says her dad Eldon Clark was a big Boston Bruins fan who always wore ball caps.
Eldon Clark died last month, and his daughter thought it would be fitting to bury him with a memento of his favourite team — but it wasn't as easy as walking into a store.
"I was really close with my dad," said Lewis-Clark, who is from Watson Lake, Yukon.
"I spent a lot of time with him so he really was like my best friend … I loved spending time with him. He wasn't judgmental. He always supported me. He was always, always there for me."
Lewis-Clark said her dad grew up playing hockey.
"He always told me stories about playing hockey and being around the Watson Lake Hotel and stuff like that," she said.
About 10 years ago, Eldon froze his toes and lost them all. He had to learn to walk all over again and couldn't play hockey anymore.
"But he still loved to watch it," she said.
Lewis-Clark went in search of a Bruins ball cap at a number of stores in Whitehorse, where she was making final arrangements, but she came up empty.
That's when a community of strangers came together to help her.
Lewis-Clark posted a message on a local Facebook page looking for help finding a Bruins ball cap.
The response was overwhelming, she said.
People began offering suggestions and tagging other people who might know where to find one.
"One girl was trying to help me and she said her dad was a big Bruins fan too and that she's sorry for my loss," said Lewis-Clark. "All of that was nice."
She was at the point of giving up, just hours before she was to leave Whitehorse to go back to Watson Lake, Lewis-Clark received a message from a young man.
He had seen the post and met Lewis-Clark to give her his Bruins ball cap.
"I asked him how much he wanted for it because it is pretty much new. He said it was a gift, if it was going to be buried with my father," she said.
"It meant a lot. I'm still very surprised by how much response I got … how nice people were and a total stranger just straight up gave it to me.
"It's meant to happen I guess."
Eldon Clark was buried July 3 in Watson Lake, along with the Boston Bruins hat.
