A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin

A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin - Marion Crook

I stepped down from the Greyhound bus in the late afternoon of a hot August day, relieved at the end of my twelve-hour trip from the city. After four years of university, I was where I wanted to be and who I wanted to be—Marion McKinnon, Cariboo Public Health Nurse. That feeling of satisfaction lasted only a minute. The truth was, I wasn’t sure of anything. I felt like a foreigner in a new country, my suitcases beside me, abandoned by the bus that had delivered me, awkward and alien.

From the coast, the bus had wound through the Fraser Canyon, following the river up into the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. Even though the windows had been open, the air had been stifling and I’d sat almost stupefied by the heat. The land was vast and seemed to roll into forever.

Get a grip, I told myself. This is going to be an adventure. I took a deep breath and looked around. Dust was everywhere: on the asphalt road, on the parked cars and the windows sills of the motel above the town that doubled as the bus station. Bits of ash floated past me, drifting on the slight breeze. To the west, I could just see a tall beehive burner proclaiming a mill site, probably the source of the ash. To the east, the lake stretched to the horizon, cradled by hills. This was the Cariboo: blue skies, a wide valley and brown grass on the hills rolling into conifers at the skyline. It was a land of sunshine---a land of logging and ranching, remote from urban centres, and I was going to be part of it.

I’d never had any ambition to be a nurse. I’d wanted to be a vet. At twelve, I’d cut open a chick to see why it had died. I didn’t find out, but I was fascinated by its anatomy. My mother thought that was odd. My dad just asked if I’d learned anything. At fifteen, I’d written to Canada’s only veterinarian college and asked what high school courses I needed for entry. I’d wanted a career with animals and one that let me live outdoors as much as possible. I remembered their answer, “Don’t bother to apply. We don’t take women.” I’d been shocked. It had been so unfair. I hadn’t cried. I’d just seethed. There were very few career choices for me in the late 50s.

I’d entered university in science because that was what interested me but without a clear vision or goal. At the end of my first year, I realized I had to pick something that would give me work upon graduation. My family had five other children. My dad told me he’d pay whatever my ambition needed, even if I wanted to study in Europe, but I couldn’t take that much from him. He wasn’t wealthy and that would be a huge sacrifice. I picked a nursing program that was an on-campus course in Seattle, rather than a hospital course in Vancouver because it was the sciences I wanted, not the patient care. I did find out that patients were fascinating, contrary and challenging, and I grew to enjoy them. Still, I’d no intention of working within the four walls of a hospital, and no interest in working in a city or suburban community. When the Cariboo Health Unit advertised for a public health nurse, I grabbed the job.

The ranching and logging communities would give me some work outdoors. I’d gazed at the Thompson River dashing dangerously close to the canyon road as the bus laboured around the winding corners on its way north. Perhaps I’d read too much Zane Gray. Too late for second thoughts now; I was committed. Whatever was coming my way, I was not going to return home where my mother would immediately find a job for me--a safe and boring job--close by. I would manage.

I saw a tall, thin woman standing by a farm truck piled high with feed sacks. She beckoned to me. I waved. She called across the lot, “Welcome to the Cariboo.” It could only be my nursing supervisor, Rita Browning.

“We’re delighted to have you, Marion. Welcome to Williams Lake.”

I knew the Cariboo-Chilcotin District in this most western province of Canada was 104,000 square miles, the size of New Zealand or the United Kingdom. I’d looked it up in Encyclopedia Britannica. I wasn’t prepared for the openness, the vast expanse of rolling hills and grasslands. The description on the printed page somehow hadn’t translated to the almost overwhelming awe of the experience. The Cariboo was huge. I was fascinated and eager to explore. That was where I wanted to be. Would there be moose, bear, coyotes, deer, mountain lion? Probably not caribou. I asked Rita.

“No, no caribou.” She yanked on the steering wheel, piloting us through the almost empty streets.

Williams Lake was a small town serving the ranchers, loggers and sawmill operators and their families, she’d told me on the phone. She’d said I’d be responsible for the country east of Williams Lake and, at times, the vast ranching country to the west. It looked immense when we stopped for a moment at a high point of the road. Hills sloped out for miles. I could see the faint blue of mountains.

I swallowed. I was a newly graduated public health nurse. I had the theory: anatomy, physiology, biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, mathematics, microbiology, sociology, psychology, ethics and even philosophy . . . but not much practice. I would be alone out there in the far reaches of the district. There would be no one to check if I was correct about a diagnosis or the dosage of a medication. No books to get more information. No doctor. No other nurses. Probably no phone for miles.