Before she bought the Bear’s Paw Bakery, the only thing Kim Stark had ever baked was a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

But in 2002, when she and her then-partner decided they wanted to live in Jasper and own a business, never having baked from scratch before didn’t seem like a particularly big hurdle.

“I thought when you bought a business, you hired employees and they did the work,” she said. “How hard could that be?”

Turns out, really freaking hard.

No days off for months. 26 hour shifts. Staff shortages. An economic downturn. It didn’t matter. Stark was committed. She wasn’t just learning a new trade but also the minutia of operating a business. She gave it everything she had, because that was her only option.

“I learned if you want to be successful in something you’ve invested your hopes and dreams in, you have to put everything into it,” she said.

Seventeen years later, that hard work has paid off. Stark is the owner of not one but two successful bakeries (The Other Paw was established in 2007). She employs more than two dozen staff throughout the year and after being recognized by her peers as the Jasper Park Chamber’s Business of the Year this past October, Stark was recently declared a finalist for the Alberta Chamber of Commerce’s Business Awards of Distinction. 

“It was a surprise,” she said. “I was like ‘how did that happen?’”

On the surface, her success may indeed seem unlikely. She is, after all, a vegetarian who makes sausage rolls. She can’t stand white chocolate, yet her signature treat is the raspberry-white chocolate scone. And despite having installed one of the first commercial cappuccino machines in Jasper, Stark doesn’t even drink coffee.

“I drink hot water,” she shrugs. 

To those who know her, however, her outcomes aren’t surprising at all. This is, after all, a woman who recently finished the UTMB, the world summit of ultra marathons, a 171 kilometre, 10,000 metre elevation gain, single stage mountain race based around Chamonix, France. Nine years ago, she could hardly run three kilometres.  

“I’m not a quitter,” she laughs.

She could have been. She could have quit in 2007, before her business qualified for the federal government’s temporary foreign worker program and she was able to hire sufficient staff. She could have refused to make wedding cakes—a skill she didn’t possess—instead of travelling to Chicago for a two week master’s course to learn the craft. And when the economy was in the toilet she certainly could have pulled her sponsorship from one of several of the charities she supports. But quitting is not part of Stark’s makeup. She’s goal-oriented. She’s driven. Even in the winter, when business is slow and both bakeries are fully staffed and she could easily stay home and spend the day walking the dog or planning her next trip, she’d rather keep busy at work.

“I don’t want to keep doing a job if I’m no longer excited about it,” she said. 

Her passion shows. Quite literally, in fact. When she designed The Other Paw, she decided to create an open kitchen so people could see the staff at work.

“People love to watch the baking, that hand-shaped artisan feel,” she says.

Putting her high standards on display has created a culture in her cafés. At least two regular “coffee klatches,” one for men and one for women (retired locals, for the most part), show up to the Bear Paw every day, in varying numbers. 

And then there are the visitors. The Bear’s Paw has always had a regional following and the smell of sticky buns surely lures plenty of first-timers through the doors, but ever since O, The Oprah Magazine said The Bear’s Paw is a must-stop in Jasper, the line-ups have been that much longer. Stark remembers being in an airport (back when the shop used to close in November) and seeing the writeup. 

“That was huge,” she says. 

The publicity was great, however, Stark will always come back to one ingredient which has determined the success of her bakeries: the staff. Some of her employees have been with her for nine years. She has loved to get to know them, to see them grow.

“They’re not just people I work with, they’re family,” she said.

As she says this, one of her senior employees clocks in for her shift. Stark tells her she’s thinking of redecorating.

“Take a look at some of the hangings and let me know what you think should stay and what should go,” Stark says. “Be honest. I can take it.”

You bet she can.

Bob Covey // https://bob@thejasperlocal.com