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RCMP and the Yukon Coroner’s Service are investigating the death of a mother and her 10-month-old daughter.

The coroner says 37-year-old Valé​rie Thé​orêt and her daughter Adele Roesholt were found dead Monday by the child’s father at a remote cabin northeast of Mayo.

Gjermund Roesholt was returning from his trapline and as he got close to home, he was charged by a grizzly bear.

He shot and killed it. When he got to the cabin, he found the bodies of his wife and child.

The coroner said it appears the mother and child had been out for a walk when the incident occurred, sometime between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Nov. 26.

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The family was based in Whitehorse where Thé​orêt worked as a French immersion teacher at a local elementary school.

They had been trapping in the Einarson Lake area for several months while Thé​orêt was on maternity leave

Bruce Dent, vice-principal at Whitehorse Elementary, said Thé​orêt had worked at the school for seven or eight years.

“She taught different grade levels and was really well-loved by her students, by their parents, by her colleagues,” he said. “She was really great.”

“The community is definitely in mourning. It’s always difficult to lose anyone. It’s particularly difficult when it’s such a shocking, unforeseen instance. It’s going to take a lot of time for people around her to get over it.”

Dent noted that Thé​orêt and her husband were “very experienced outdoors people.”

Mayo RCMP, the RCMP’s Forensic Identification Section, and Yukon Government’s Department of the Environment are assisting Yukon Coroner’s Service with this investigation.

— With files from Sarah MacDonald