Open Collections

Description

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the School of Nursing at UBC. Following World War II, governments began extending healthcare to residents living in northern remote communities as a way to “modernize” the vast region and to pave the way for increased resource extraction. Small outpost nursing stations were established across the north where nurses, often working alone and facing a number of challenges, delivered health care services to the primarily Aboriginal population. However, the nurses’ roles and their perceptions of the communities where they worked were often ambiguous and contradictory, resulting in a mixed experience for nurses and patients alike. Drawing from the nurses’ personal correspondence and interviews, this presentation will examine the perspectives about the places where nurses worked and the people they provided services to during a time of significant change.