The City of Vancouver has lost one of its iconic characters.
Laura-Kay Prophet, known to most as the “Duck Lady,” died on Thursday at age 82.
Prophet was unmistakable on the streets and buses of Vancouver, which she travelled for decades pulling a cart with a series of pet ducks.
“She just cared about everybody, you know? She always put people over herself,” said Jenn Bourget, a friend and support worker of Prophet’s.
“Always smiling, always wanting to do kind things for others.”
Prophet had distributed tens of thousands of dollars to people in need on Vancouver’s streets according to a 2014 mini-documentary she participated in for StoryHive.
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The work started when one of her ducks named Bobby (the first of many to bear the name) began laying eggs. She boiled them to hand out to those in need, but wanted to give more so began handing out sandwiches and cookies along with them.
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She started a charity called Duck $oup in 1969, and began handing out between $1 and $100 every month, hidden in cookies she was distributing.
“Basically, it is to make people feel good and give them self-esteem, but it also makes me feel good and creates my self-esteem,” she told the StoryHive documentary.
“It makes me feel good because I am making them feel good.”
Prophet lived with multiple sclerosis, according to the documentary, a diagnosis that helped her connect with others because, as she said, “we are all broken.”
Bourget, who works with Community Builders, said Prophet had spent a period of time homeless, but had been living in stable housing for more than a decade.
Bourget said it wasn’t clear how Prophet’s connection with the ducks began, but that she clearly loved them — and used them to connect with the people she met on the street.
“Instant happiness always and conversation,” she said.
“That was how she met a lot of people, through the duck, and then they would get to know a sweet old lady who was just so kind and wanted to make people smile.”
The beloved community fixture did not have any relatives in the city, according to Bourget, but made a family from her ducks and from her community.
“(She had) this need to have something to love and to nurture, and that was her ducks. When her last duck passed away, Bobby, at Christmas, that really hurt her,” she said.
Prophet’s passing has been deeply felt in the community, Bourget added, and a service honouring her has been planned for Friday.
“Laura was a very organized prim and proper lady,” she said.
“I am going to miss her so much, she was very special and so sweet and so loving and understanding.
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