{"id":7031,"date":"2022-11-24T14:50:21","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T22:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/?p=7031"},"modified":"2024-07-20T15:58:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T22:58:40","slug":"a-nurse-tackles-the-cariboo-chilcotin-in-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/a-nurse-tackles-the-cariboo-chilcotin-in-1963\/","title":{"rendered":"A nurse tackles the Cariboo-Chilcotin in 1963"},"content":{"rendered":"

Na\u00efve but adventurous, twenty-two years young and fresh out of university, Public Health Nurse Marion McKinnon accepts an assignment for a four day, multi stop, two-hundred mile trip from Williams Lake to Anahim Lake into the vast Cariboo-Chilcotin country of British Columbia. It\u2019s December and the first snow has fallen across the land. The year is 1963. The weather forecast: twenty-two degrees below freezing.<\/p>\n

The view is breathtaking and the roads treacherous.<\/p>\n

And what if she gets lost? Or skids into a snowbank? In 1963, Marion is on her own in the wild but beautiful country, deep in winter – no cell phone, no two way radio. Just a chocolate bar and a candle . . . and the enthusiasm of her youth.<\/p>\n

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Marion Crook’s book ALWAYS PACK A CANDLE held its own on BC’s Bestseller List for one year and won the 2022 Lieutenant-Governor’s Community History Award. Here is a glimpse into the adventures of a frontline worker holding her own and bringing health care to far-flung homesteads, one-room schools and small town residents – decades before developments in modern technology would put her in communication with the world she served.<\/p>\n