‘Beautiful guy’: Ottawa’s culinary community remembers Joshua Qiyuk

Joshua Qiyuk was kind, he was shy, he was dependable and he stayed out of trouble.

This is how many people across Ottawa’s culinary and Inuit communities are remembering the 21-year-old, as they are left asking how his life could have come to such a violent end last week.

Ottawa police are investigating after Qiyuk was found in Ottawa’s Meadow Park Place on the morning of Oct. 22, the victim of an apparent stabbing.

“Josh was a beautiful guy,” said Patrick Garland, a chef at Ottawa’s Absinthe restaurant, who hired Qiyuk more than two years ago to be a cook.

Garland described Qiyuk, originally from Baker Lake, as a selfless guy who was willing to help anyone, including a man who could usually be found across the street from Absinthe, collecting change.

“Every time he saw him, he made him something nice, like a real big fat sandwich or a big bowl of soup or bacon and eggs. Just real comfort food,” Garland said.

“And he’d stand and chat with the guy for a while. So many people, when they do things like that, they pat themselves on the back … and Josh was so humble. You could tell that he really didn’t do it for that [reason]. It was really just a selfless act on his part to help another human being.”

Qiyuk was also the type of person who would happily take on repetitive tasks — like putting together hundreds of little individual-sized pizza doughs for a catering event.

“It didn’t matter how tedious the task was, he just did it,” said Trudy Metcalfe-Coe, an Inuk chef who helped train Qiyuk while he was studying in the culinary program at Algonquin College in Ottawa.

Qiyuk found his first full-time job at Absinthe after graduating from Algonquin College.

He spent a few years doing part-time work for C’est Bon cooking school as well, working for chef Georges Laurier, who also remembers Qiyuk fondly.

“Josh was a really beautiful person,” he said. “Non-demanding, always on time, always there, he had a beautiful innocent way of doing things.”

Both Laurier and Metcalfe-Coe laughingly brought up an anecdote shared by Garland at Absinthe — that Qiyuk showed up for his job interview at the Wellington Street restaurant dressed in full chef regalia.

“For him to be hired on the spot because he showed up in his chef’s whites,” laughed Metcalfe-Coe, “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Josh.’”

Metcalfe-Coe is planning a vigil for Qiyuk on Sunday. While details are being finalized, she said she plans to honour Qiyuk’s family’s wishes for the event to take place in the area where Qiyuk lost his life.

“Not just for us but for the neighbourhood,” she said. “It’ll be sad, touching, emotional, but at the same time a celebration of who Josh was.”

Metcalfe said she will share more information about the event on social media, once confirmed.

Members of Joshua Qiyuk’s family could not be reached for comment.