Sentiments in the Sentinel:

Sentiments in the Sentinel:
Environmental Challenges in Adapting to
the National Definition of Population Mental
Health in Kitimat, British Columbia, 19541959
Kelsey Lucyk
Department of Community Health Sciences
History of Medicine and Health Care Program
University of Calgary
Outline
1. Objective
2. Population mental health
3. Kitimat, British Columbia
4. Implications for population mental
health
Objective
Provide a historical example of the
environmental challenges that prevented
Kitimat residents from participating in the
dominant definition of population mental
health in postwar Canadian society.
Population Mental Health
9 holistic approach
9 improve mental health of entire population
9 enjoy life
9 balance its demands
9 develop psychological and emotional resilience
9 social determinants of mental health
Methods
Kitimat, British Columbia
Kitimat
Vancouver
Kitimat, British Columbia
9 Realized potential
9 Contributed to community
9 Worked productively and
fruitfully
‰ Could cope with the normal
stresses of life
Prince Philip inspects the first ingot
poured in the new aluminum smelter, 1954
Social Environment
• “normal”
• English-speaking
Dear Sir:
Dear Sir:
Mr. Kadulski would tell a
different
tale
of with
[sic] he
…We who
agree
herhad
are to
live,
and
eat with
NOTsleep
in the
minority.
Forsome
Mr. of
these
Newinformation
Canadians.
Kadulski’s
I amHe
should
have girl
to clean
up after
a German
here only
a
them.
Not
only
would
he
make
few months but learning to
them
learnCanadian.
English Ibut
I bet
be a good
do not
he’
d teach
them
havethat
clean
close
my eyes
to to
things
ways
and manners. More power
are wrong.
to this Mrs. Birbidge.
Yours very truly,
Yours
Mariatruly,
Kadetz
John Galen
Built Environment
• Middle class
Built Environment
• Middle class
– independent
family unit
• Nuclear family
Built Environment
• Isolation
Letters to the Editor, September 15, 1955:
•
“Give us housing or push a road through fast so we can live elsewhere!’”
•
“I wonder who are the worst off…those as you might say camping at the
townsite or those living hundreds of miles away and their Daddys living in
camp, too far away to even visit for a weekend.”
•
“It seems to me that there is more misery and mischief caused in Kitimat
over shared housing, inadequate housing and families being separated
because of no housing being available than through any other cause.”
Conclusions
Designed to be ideal, but planners didn’t
consider:
1. The population they would attract.
2. The environment they were building in.
3. How this would affect population
mental health.