Chapter 19 - A Garden, a Visitor, and a Few Tense Flights
A slice of life from a remote, fly-in community
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As winter gave way to spring, Trish decided she wanted to plant a vegetable garden. When she mentioned her plan to her neighbour, Mary responded with a puzzled look. She said no one in the village had a garden. Trish pointed out that the vegetables sold at the Hudson’s Bay store were terribly expensive, and often bruised and battered by the time they arrived in the small community. She believed growing fresh vegetables could improve people’s diets, especially the kids, some of whom suffered from poor nutrition. Mary was skeptical.
Trish had helped her dad so much in his garden allotment when she was young that she had a good idea of what was needed to plant her own. She ordered packets of seeds from Terrace, as the Hudson’s Bay store didn’t carry any. Unsure about the local growing season, she stuck to reliable, easy-to-grow vegetables: lettuce, radishes, peas, and carrots. She would plant the basics, and just to see how they would do.
Surveying the ground around the Nurse’s Station with a critical eye, she found a flat patch of ground and started the work of turning over the soil. Residents walking by questioned what she was doing, their expressions suggesting they thought she was a bit crazy, but the local kids were intrigued. When the seeds arrived, they watched intently as she planted tidy rows, carefully labeling each one. The garden quickly became a novelty in the community, and Trish enjoyed tending to it.
Around the same time she planted her garden, Trish received news from home. Along with her mum’s updates about daily life, the letter announced that her brother Richard was coming for a two-week visit in June–he would arrive in about a month. As soon as she read the words, Trish cast her eyes around the Nurse’s Station and wondered how she would be able to host him for two weeks–and more importantly, what would he do for that time in such a remote location? She didn’t have any holiday time she could take to tour him around. Re-reading the letter, she supposed it didn’t matter, the word of his visit was a declaration, not a question. They would just have to figure things out when he arrived.
One pressing concern, however, was how she would afford to feed him. The prices at the Hudson’s Bay store remained outrageous. On her next trip to Terrace, she had an idea–she decided to visit a grocery store in the larger town and check the prices. Walking through the isles of the grocery store, she saw that the price of food was indeed much, much cheaper in Terrace. Trish went to the customer service counter, explained that she was the nurse posted to Telegraph Creek, and asked a staff member if they could ship a standing list of groceries to her once a month. The staff member said no, they didn’t do that.
Trish was disappointed, but unwilling to accept that it was impossible, so she visited another grocery store. The answer was the same. Finally, she tried the Overwaitea store, and to her relief, they said yes! Even better, they had a staff member who lived near the Terrace airport, who offered to deliver her groceries to the next plane, for no charge. Trish was thrilled! The difference in cost was astonishing. Even with the freight charges to fly the groceries to Telegraph Creek, her overall expenses were a third less than what she was paying at the Hudson’s Bay store, and there was much more variety of items to choose from. Trish felt incredibly grateful, though she was aware the residents of Telegraph Creek didn’t have the same opportunity to bypass the local prices. It reminded her of the special gifts and favours she’d received back in England for being a nurse, like tickets to the theatre or the local fair, but this was much more practical.
With her grocery concerns resolved, Trish felt better about her brother’s upcoming visit, though she still worried about how he would occupy himself while she was working.
Richard arrived on the sked, and Trish met him on the airstrip. Even then, she wasn’t sure how he would handle two weeks in such a remote place. She didn’t know him well enough to guess his interests, and Telegraph Creek was worlds away from Liverpool.
Her worries were unnecessary. After settling into the second bedroom at the Nurse’s Station, and catching up on sleep, Richard started exploring. Every day, he wandered through the village, the town below, and along the riverbank. He seemed in awe of the wilderness, though he wasn’t a fan of the black-flies, and he quickly became well-liked by the locals. His curiosity about their lives led to dinner invitations, and soon he was visiting people’s homes regularly. Trish was surprised, but pleased, as his independence meant she could focus on her work.
As his two-week stay came to an end, Richard announced that he planned to stay in Canada–in Telegraph Creek, to be exact. He explained there was nothing for him in Liverpool, and he was so taken with the wilderness and the way of life in Telegraph Creek, he planned to stay there with Trish. She didn’t know what to say, but she did understand her brother’s sentiments. They weren’t that different to her own.
The idea of him continuing to live with her at the Nurse’s Station, however, was another matter. Her living arrangement didn’t allow for personal guests for extended periods of time. She worked out a deal with her brother for the times when the second bedroom was needed for a visiting doctor, or the nurse supervisor came to stay–Richard agreed to find somewhere else to sleep on those occasions, and he did. She wrote a letter to her employer explaining the situation and asking them to take rent for Richard’s room from her salary. At the end of the month, as she was filling out the spreadsheet of expenses that needed to be submitted along with the checklist of her activities from the previous month, she included rent for Richard. When her paycheque arrived the following month, it was the same amount as usual, with no new deductions. Trish briefly wondered if there was something further she needed to do, but decided that she had notified them that he was living there, and she would continue to add his rent to the monthly spreadsheet. She had done all she could. There were never deductions from her pay for Richard’s stay, and when the second room was needed for its intended purpose, they made it work, so there were no complaints about the arrangement.
Over the next few months, Richard applied for Landed Immigrant status at the Immigration office in Prince Rupert. He was one of the last people allowed to obtain this status without having to return to his home country to apply, allowing him to officially remain in Canada.
Life in the village carried on. Richard continued spending time in nature, or with his new friends, and Trish worked. In the evenings she tended to her little garden. The garden was doing quite well, she thought. There were always a few kids who were eager to help her pull weeds along the rows, and they were impatient to see the grown vegetables, as was she.
Early that summer, Trish had another memorable encounter with Mrs. Fretwell, this time in Iskut. Trish had flown in with Walter on the sked, with the plan to stay for a few days on one of her regular health promotion visits. She knew her supervisor was planning to stay in Iskut with her, to observe her activities. The woman wasn’t on the plane when Trish boarded in Telegraph Creek, so she thought perhaps her supervisor’s travel had been cancelled. Walter cautioned her not to get too excited; his dispatcher, Diane had notified him there was a second plane arriving in Iskut that day, as there was a group of surveyors arriving in the area. Mrs. Fretwell might be on that flight.
As the second flight was arriving quite soon after Trish’s flight, she and Walter were standing together at the edge of the small airstrip, along with several residents from Iskut, when the second aircraft, a DC-3, approached. It seemed to Trish that the plane was coming in too fast, and Walter confirmed it was. When it touched down, it landed hard.
The airstrip in Iskut was not very long, more like a grassy notch cut into the wilderness, than a formal runway. The plane lurched as the pilot applied the brakes, and Trish noticed fluid begin to spray from a hose near one of the wheels. In an instant, the aircraft spun around, its engine roaring. After spinning 180 degrees, it came to a stop at the far end of the airstrip, facing the stunned onlookers. Walter was animated as he told Trish they had witnessed a ground loop, and the pilots were very lucky the plane didn’t flip over as it spun. Instead, it came to a stop, almost gently, against the stand of trees at the end of the airstrip. As soon as the dust settled, Walter hurried toward the plane, he was undoubtedly keen to talk to the pilots and learn what their experience had been in the cockpit on that landing. Trish and the others who were waiting followed more cautiously, as it was obvious the plane was disabled and would not be taxiing to its usual location to unload the passengers and their cargo.
After a long moment, the door opened and lowered toward the ground–it was hinged at the bottom and doubled as a staircase when lowered. Passengers began stepping out, visibly shaken. Even in Iskut, where people took adversity in stride, that landing had clearly rattled them. But not Mrs. Fretwell. She descended the steps without a care in the world, journal in hand, completely unfazed. She even paused at the bottom to jot down a few more notes, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she had just experienced what anyone else would call a crash-landing.
What an odd woman, Trish thought, as she scrambled to come up with an appropriate greeting, given the situation. Thankfully, the rest of the visit passed without incident. Mrs. Fretwell spent much of her time interviewing anyone she encountered, she seemed very interested in interviewing the surveyors who had been on the flight with her, for whatever reason, and taking an abundance of notes. As was becoming a pattern, Trish found herself much happier about Mrs. Fretwell’s departure than her arrival.
Back in Telegraph Creek, Trish began to see the unintended consequences of sending all pregnant women to Terrace for the last two weeks of their pregnancy. Many women avoided pre-natal care, and Trish herself, as their due dates approached, hoping to avoid being sent away from their families. One morning a woman in labour arrived at the Nurse’s Station. She had small children at home and had deliberately avoided Trish’s attempts to check on her as her pregnancy progressed, as she understandably didn’t want to be sent away to Terrace. Now, she was in labour, and although her previous pregnancies had been uneventful, this one wasn’t going as expected. When she finally arrived at the Nurse’s Station, contractions already in progress, Trish found the baby had shifted in the womb and was now positioned in what is known as a “transverse lie”. The baby was not facing down the birth canal, rather, it was laying horizontally. As soon as Trish realized the issue, she knew the baby could not be delivered naturally. The woman needed a caesarean section–she had to get to Terrace, and quickly.
Trish went down the hill to the Hudson Bay store to call the hospital to let them know she would send the patient out on the sked that day. Within a few hours, Walter arrived, and Trish met the plane, along with the heavily pregnant woman. Trish was not going to accompany the woman on the flight, there was no need. It was only a short flight, and although the woman was in early labour, the infant was not going to deliver. Walter helped the woman onto the plane, along with a few other passengers, and set off for Terrace.
The woman returned several days later with a healthy baby boy. Trish met them at the airstrip, where the woman introduced her to the baby–whom she had named Walter. Curious about the name, Trish listened as Walter, the pilot, shared the story of the outbound flight.
When the pregnant woman boarded the plane, Walter assumed she was simply going to Terrace to await her delivery. But shortly after takeoff, when she began showing signs of active labour, he grew alarmed.
Trish replayed the events in her mind, trying to remember if she had told Walter about the woman’s condition before putting her on the plane–obviously she hadn’t. She couldn’t have; she had been right there beside the patient, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to share her medical information to the pilot. The woman would have felt her privacy had been invaded.
Walter continued with his story. He noticed the woman was in labour, so he called another passenger, an off-duty RCMP officer, up to the front, and told him he was now the in-flight midwife. Walter chuckled as he said, “He didn’t take it very well, but he had no choice,”.
The woman’s contractions seemed to be getting closer together, and Walter was concerned they might have to deliver a baby in the small fuselage of the Beechcraft 18. As he was worrying about what was happening behind him, he suddenly noticed a new problem in front of him–the oil pressure was starting to fluctuate on the right-hand engine. He looked out, and saw oil coating the right wing, he was losing oil. Still about 100 miles out of Terrace, he was confronted with a decision. In this situation, he would ideally shut down the damaged engine, the plane could fly on just one engine. His concern though, was that the pregnant woman was sitting on that side of the aircraft. If she looked out the window and noticed the propeller wasn’t spinning, well, he didn’t want to cause her any more stress than she was already experiencing. That might accelerate her labour, and he was willing to do anything in his power to get that woman to a more appropriate place to have her baby. Rather than cutting power to the damaged right engine, he made the decision to sacrifice it instead. He trimmed the power to it, intending to run it until the oil was gone and the engine stalled on its own, hoping he could make it to Terrace before that happened. It was not a good option, and would be expensive for his boss, if the engine seized before they landed, but it seemed like the best choice at the time. The rest of the flight was tense for everyone; the labouring woman, the off-duty RCMP, who looked like he regretted ever getting on the flight, and Walter, as he willed the engine to keep going.
When he landed safely in Terrace, and the right engine had not stalled, nor had the woman delivered a baby in the plane, Walter finally relaxed. He thanked the RCMP officer, who was also incredibly relieved he wasn’t called on to do more than sit awkwardly with the labouring woman. Walter told him about the engine issue, and they agreed the outcome was pretty good for the situation. Later, the ground crew told Walter there was less than a cup of oil left in the right engine when he landed, but because the engine hadn’t seized, it could be fixed, which brought even more relief.
When Trish explained to him that the woman wouldn’t have been able to deliver the baby anyway, Walter looked a bit exasperated. That had been a very stressful flight, and he could have followed the usual procedure and just cut the engine, had he known. Trish felt bad for not telling him the more details of the case at the time, but maintaining patient confidentiality was a primary value of healthcare workers. Sometimes it was difficult to know where patient confidentiality ended, and safety began, in this environment.
Walter said he hadn’t spoken directly with the woman, so Trish presumed the woman must have learned of the lengths he went to protect her from further distress on the flight from the RCMP officer, or other passengers, and that was why she chose his name for her baby boy. She thought it was a nice way to honour his efforts to keep the woman as comfortable as possible in a difficult situation.
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Author’s Notes
N.B.1: In 1970, as Trish was introduced to the people of Telegraph Creek and Iskut, the language of the time, “Natives”, was used. Today, the people living on the lands where Trish worked, have reclaimed their traditional identities, leaving behind the nomenclature assigned them during colonization.
The communities of Telegraph Creek and Iskut sit on the traditional territory of the Tahltan First Nations. If you would like to read more about the identity and culture of First Nations people in Canada, including insights from Indigenous authors and advisors, here is a resource from the “First Nations & Indigenous Studies” program at the University of British Columbia.
N.B.2: We often see our parents through the lens of their roles in our lives— caregivers, disciplinarians, cheerleaders. Perhaps they are our role models or mentors, but who were they before they became these things to us?
To better understand who my parents were before they were, well, my parents, I set about interviewing them about their lives before marriage and kids. I started with my mom.
Trish Lewis was 17 years old and desperate to escape a mind-numbing administrative job at a factory in Liverpool in the 1950’s. She made the impulsive decision to join a friend to interview for nurse’s aide training at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. That decision changed the trajectory of her life and launched her into an interesting and rewarding career as a nurse.
Trish is my mom, and this is her story, as told to me in a series of interviews in 2024. The story is pieced together from Mom’s memory, photos, and documents. As we all know, memory is fallible. In the telling of this story, some names have been changed, either because they could not be recalled, or to protect the privacy of the person. The Journey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
N.B.3: If you are enjoying this story, you may also enjoy reading my memoir, “Resilience in the Rubble: A True Tale of Aid and Survival in Kashmir”. The book shares my experience as a first-time medical aid worker in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, after an earthquake devastated the region in 2005. It also tells the story of Nadeem Malik, a local teenager who lived through the earthquake, and his struggle to provide for his family in the aftermath.