Nursing Under the Midnight Sun : Public Health Nurses in the Yukon, 1945-1967

This study explores the development of public health nursing in the Yukon Territory between 1945 and 1967. This period in Yukon history was marked by significant social and political changes, including the rapid increase of the white settler population, the expansion of the modern Canadian welfare state, and the continued colonization of Northern Indigenous communities. Public health nurses played a pivotal role in these processes, but their contributions are underrepresented in the history of nursing. Drawing on archival records, government reports, autobiographies, and oral histories, this study examines the evolution of public health nursing within this historical moment. I argue that public health nurses inhabited a complex position in the development of Yukon health services. Nurses were essential in public health efforts to control communicable diseases and reduce infant mortality, but in doing so contributed to a deepening of colonialism. Public health nurses sought professional independence and autonomy through northern practice yet were heavily scrutinized by their employers who routinely dismissed nurses’ concerns. By situating nurses within the broader context of northern development, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the ambiguities of public health nursing in the Yukon.