BY JO-ANNE HOLMES

A snapshot of Northern Health Care in the 60s

Photos courtesy of Keith Billington
Dog teams were a lifeline to remote Northern communities in the 60s: they carried health care personnel and supplies.
For six years, Keith and Muriel Billington were nurse practitioners, at Fort MacPherson, making routine and emergency calls in the days when nurse practitioners were unheard of, says Keith, en route to Inuvik. “That’s what we were. We were nurse practitioners.”

Billington places his accent, “I’m a British mongrel,” he laughs. “I was born in Wales; Muriel is from Yorkshire ... We finished our training [in Halifax, England], got married and immigrated all in the same year [1962]. That was quite a year, I’ll tell you.”
The Billingtons saw an ad “in an English nursing magazine – the Canadian government advertising for people who wanted to go and care for indians and Eskimos ... and so we came within about six months of finishing our training.”
There were two opportunities: Watson Lake or Fort MacPherson. Watson Lake was not remote enough – not the “North” they had dreamed of. The remoter choice, Fort MacPherson “tickled” the Billingtons’ adventurous spirit.
They landed in Edmonton first.
“Here we were ... we were still in our twenties ... we had just trained; we had just done our exams in Edmonton. We had the confidence of the young.”
And with that confidence, one year later, they made their way to Fort MacPherson, a community of about 1,000 people of whom 90 per cent were Gwich’in. The Billingtons lived and worked at the nursing station.
Muriel, who specialized in midwifery, did the “bulk” of deliveries, although Keith says she taught him everything she knew and occasionally he delivered a baby “by default”.
The couple provided a broad spectrum of care.

“We did everything from birthing the babies, to treating them ... When people died, we used to lay them out for the funeral.
“We did everything, right from birth to death.”
Keith also travelled by dogsled to other communities and camps: “to Sigacik about once a month and into the Richardson Mountains, 40 miles east to Arctic Red River [on the junction of the Arctic Red and Mackenzie rivers] ... two- or three-days’ journey by dogsled to the Richardson Mountains going to the west.”
Visits included giving examinations and medication as well as providing immunization to children – “even dental work,” Keith says.
Muriel stayed behind, Keith says, “in case anybody delivered.” One winter, Muriel travelled with him and they stayed in the mountains for a week.
They travelled about 150 miles and Keith says they “didn’t know any better than to follow the river [it was 70 miles by air].”
He recalls getting lost once and spending the night on a lake before finding his way to Arctic Red River, the next day. RCMP were initiating a search (fresh trails were not common and he would have been “easy enough” to find).
“Dog-team travel was slow, but it was sure.”
Sleds were “16- or 18-foot-long oak toboggans with sides on them and a big curve in the front. I always carried a three-star sleeping bag ... matches and an axe. I also had to carry dog food or dried fish, which was light and easy to pack and the dogs liked it.
“I had insulated bags that I would put into my sleeping bag [to keep medication from freezing].
“I would always bring meat back for the Gwich’in people. If I went to the hunting camps, they would send meat back for the elders. It was no good coming back with an empty toboggan.”
Keith brought fish from the Arctic Red River camp and caribou from the Richardson Mountains camp.
“[There were] very serious injuries,” he recalls. “We had all the medications; we had narcotics and antibiotics ... all the usual medications of that era available to us.” Plasma was the only thing lacking.
Keith recounts one incident: “Somebody was shot and we got them into the station and he was evacuated ... He died the next day and so it became a murder.”
The Billingtons relied on RCMP for communication and support. They also relied on “Freddy Carmichael, a bush pilot [Reindeer Air Service] out of Inuvik who risked his life many times.
“He took me into camps and would fly into deep, deep snow ... but he could handle his plane. He would go to the Nth degree to help us out.”
The Billingtons’ fondest memories are of the Gwich’in People. “The Elders were such wonderful people ... always making us feel like we were part of their family.”
After journalling for years and retelling their adventures to family and friends, Keith says jovially that people asked, “Why don’t you write a book?”
And he has: House Calls on Dogsled is dedicated to the Gwich’in People of Fort MacPherson. Keith wanted to preserve the story of the Gwich’in who “lived a hard life, but were tremendous people. They made us look at people in a different light.
“We always said we went there to teach people, but they taught us.”
In 1969, the couple decided that their children, Helen and Stephen, needed to experience their own culture, so they relocated to B.C. Today, Keith and Muriel reside in Ness Lake, B.C.
Keith returned, in the spring of 1970, for the re-enactment of The Lost Patrol by Dick North. “We only wanted to re-enact the successful part,” Billington says, chuckling.
The couple is returning in September to visit friends and introduce Keith’s book.
Keith Billington’s book, House Calls by Dogsled, is available at Mac’s Fireweed Books.