About Author Kim Han

Kim Han is a retired librarian who worked on contracts with the Canadian Embassy and a number of international organizations in the Netherlands. This included work in the Archives of the International Court of Justice, the judicial arm of the United Nations, where Kim conducted an analysis and a feasibility study to justify the automation of the Court’s antiquated records management system. She then accompanied her husband back home to Ottawa, Canada, upon his retirement and the birth of their first grandchild there.

Upon their return to Canada, rather than retiring, Kim chose to continue working in her fields of study. She worked as a substitute librarian at the Ottawa Public Library for 16 years and volunteered at the local hospital for more than 15. She has a Master’s degree in German literature from Carleton University, as well as a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Western Ontario. Kim is fluent in English, German, Dutch and Indonesian. She also speaks French, although she says her French is not perfect.

Kim went parasailing in Bali when she was in her fifties and jumped off the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand, the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern hemisphere when she was 68 years old. Kim has lived in Indonesia, Germany, The Netherlands, and Canada, and traveled to six different continents. She enjoys cross-country skiing, canoeing, hiking, biking, and taking her dog, Parker, for walks to Beaver Pond near the retirement home where she and her husband moved in 2020. 

Kim developed her love of writing when she worked on a bilingual children’s television show for the CBC in Montreal. She has taken various writing workshops and written articles that were published in magazines and newspapers in Canada and the Netherlands. Kim is the author of the book The Canadian Inuit Dog: Icon of Canada’s North which she dedicated to her daughter, Siu-Ling who lived in the Arctic, where she owned and ran a team of traditional Canadian Inuit Dogs.

Losing her daughter to ovarian cancer was a devastating experience. Before that, Kim had to learn to live through the ups and downs of her daughter’s thirteen-year cancer journey. How did she cope? How did she find the strength to carry on, and how did she find meaning in the most heart-wrenching pain for a parent to endure?

In I Am with You Everywhere: Finding Solace in the Mists of Grief, Kim speaks from her heart as she shares how she learned to navigate her grief journey and climb out of that deep, dark valley to soothe the pain of her broken heart. Kim hopes that those who need it, find inspiration and solace to help them through their own grief journey, one day at a time.

In addition to Siu-Ling, Kim and Bing have two sons, Jeffrey and Timothy, granddaughter Kina in Ottawa and grandchildren Yi Zhen and Jin in London, UK.

About Siu-Ling Han

written by her mother, Kim Han

Siu-Ling was not only my daughter, she was also my best friend, the person I turned to when I, her mother, needed someone to talk to. Someone sensible, down-to-earth, and able to listen without judgement. She was our guiding light and the rock in our family. However, Siu-Ling was more than that. She was also a singer and songwriter, and a well-respected dog driver. 

Growing up in Montreal and Ottawa, Siu-Ling graduated from the University of Waterloo with an MSc in biology. She fell in love with the Arctic when she travelled north as a research assistant at university. Siu-Ling worked for the Northern Contaminants Program which led to the drafting of international protocols for persistent organic pollutants. In 1998 she moved to Nunavut and made Iqaluit her home, where she worked for Environment Canada. 

In 2009, six years after her cancer diagnosis, Siu-Ling went on a 1000+ kilometre expedition along the east coast of Baffin Island with three friends. With help from Inuit hunters, she planned and executed the logistics needed to safely navigate challenging Arctic terrain and placement of food caches along the route between Iqaluit and Pond Inlet.

Siu-Ling is known as a person who made extraordinary efforts to cultivate deep and meaningful friendships. It has been said that she didn't just flit in and out of people's lives. Known as "the wise one," friends turned to her when faced with a problem or life-altering decision. As Head of Eastern Arctic’s program in wildlife management, Siu-Ling never lost sight of the fact that she was living in the land of Inuit. This understanding defined her work and she ensured that the perspective of Inuit in wildlife management, at all levels, was heard. She embraced Inuit life, learned Inuktitut to better communicate with elders and hunters, and started a team of Inuit dogs, which she bred, raised and trained in a way that honoured Inuit cultural tradition for almost two decades. 

Siu-Ling was an observer of human nature, a talented musician and song-writer. She quietly wrote songs to explore and relate to the world around her. Her CD To Those Who Would Show Kindness was launched days before she passed away. It is a deeply raw and personal album that explores love, pain, disappointment, friendship and most of all, the simple joy of living in the present. Set in the stark yet beautiful landscape of the Canadian Arctic, Siu-ling’s songs echo the darkness and light of the human condition and what it means to be alive. It was Siu-Ling’s wish that all proceeds of the CD support mental health initiatives for Inuit youth.