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Ok, let me tell you about a little town in northwestern Ontario called Sioux Lookout....
THREAD
THREAD
Sioux Lookout is home to 5500 ppl + located approximately halfway bw Winnipeg and Thunder Bay. It is a healthcare + service hub for over 2 dozen Oji-Cree and Ojibway (Anishinaabe) communities across Treaty 3, 5, and 9 territories spread across an area the size of France.
Sioux Lookout will always feel like home to me, as it's where I began to grow into the person I am today. After graduating university in 2009, I moved here and spent nearly 6 years serving clients from across the region as a pharmacist. I found my family here and I found myself.
This humble little store is where I developed as a #pharmacist and, hidden deep in the back, is one of the busiest dispensaries in northern Ontario - serving, by the time I left in 2015, hundreds of clients per day in 12 communities across the region.
Sioux Lookout is a perfect place to practice as a health professional. You are constantly challenged by the pace and complexity of work but rewarded by the collegiality and importance of your service. A healthy work-life balance is possible with the many recreation opportunities.
The town's name comes from a legendary battle bw the Ojibway and Sioux, after the Sioux chased the Ojibway west from Lake Superior. After many close escapes, the Ojibway regrouped here and used the elevated outlook to spot the advancing Sioux and lay a devastating trap.
Nearly 200 years later, the town developed as a terminal on the Transcontinental Railway and has been a transportation hub -- rail, air, road, and water -- ever since. 4 highways converge at Sioux Lookout and the CNR main line bisects the town.
By the time the airport opened in 1933, it was the 2nd busiest on the continent (after Chicago). The town was booming and began developing infrastructure such as a general hospital.
I often describe Sioux Lookout as existing on frontlines of #colonization, placed on the frontier bw settler Canada and the First Nations this country displaced. No better example exists than the fact that for decades Indigenous ppl had a separate hospital from the white townfolk
By the 1980s, resulting from significant activism, the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority emerged to serve the 33 communities of the region. Finally, by 2010, the Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre -- a 60-bed regional hospital - opened to serve residents of all backgrounds.
This would be a great time to acknowledge the tremendous physicians serving the region - and who have been such an influence on my career -- like @cchase1313 @lindsayhancock @KirlewMichael and many others who are amazing healthcare professionals, advocates, and people.
Sioux Lookout is a town of picturesque beauty and endless opportunities. And when you think you've seen it all, you can boat on over to the next lake and find horizons anew.
Downtown Sioux Lookout also has many amenities, incl. full service retail/grocery, multiple pharmacies, a local coffee shop, arena, golf/curling club, and much more.
And if you need to get away from it all, Cedar Bay Recreation Centre is just minutes away from downtown, with numerous trails for hiking, horse-riding, fat-biking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling.
Going to wind it down for tonight but will probably add to the thread over the remainder of the week....
No matter where life takes me, there will always be a big piece of Sioux Lookout that comes along for the ride.
No matter where life takes me, there will always be a big piece of Sioux Lookout that comes along for the ride.
