Why a Booktrail?
1960s onwards: A newly qualified nurse heads out in the world with a sense of adventure
A Nurse Abroad
What you need to know before your trail
In the early 1960s, Anne Watts, a newly qualified nurse in Wales, was eager to use her skills. She had a sense of adventure as well as a medical vocation however and so the first chance she got, she headed out to Canada in order to work in the remote outpost stations in the frozen north. There, she found a placement easily, among the indigenous Inuit people. This first experience gave her the bug to travel more however and her next stop was Australia and the outback.
Many years later, she heads back to see how life has changed in both these places and what became of her new found friends she left behind.
Locations
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Canada – Nunavut – Eskimo Point
Fully qualified nurses were in great demand in those days throughout North AMerica, south Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Eskimo Point lay some 100 miles north of Churchill. The settlement was only accessible by air, by boat during summer months, and – as I was to learn – by an extraordinary machine called a Bombardier that ran on a caterpillar-track system and looked like a tank.
Despite wearing arctic clothes:
“ The cold wind clawed at my skin, ripped off my hood and literary took my breath way.The Inuit hunter alighting behind me quickly pushed my hood back into my head and told me not o let go of it for even a second, or my ears would freeze.
“It was colder than a Mother-in-law’s kiss out there”
Australia – Alice Springs
I learned a lot about safety on the desert tracks during that trip to Alice, driven for the most part along the Stuart Highway…There was not a living soul to be seen until over halfway o Alice Springs, we say grey wallabies lolloping along the road”
Responsible for overseeing the heath of all those who lived outside of ALice Springs proper was the RFDS – the Royal Flying Doctor Service – whose mann base was a few streets away from the hospital.
I love any medium that honours and celebrates local history , so in Alice SPrings that meant checking out the local folk club.
The Indigenous people had lived harmoniously with the land for at least 50, 000 years. What stories they could surely have told.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: A Nurse Abroad
Destination: Alice Springs, Nunavut, Eskimo Point Author/Guide: Anne Watts Departure Time: 1960s onwards
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