Gretchen Roedde - Deep Water Dream: A Medical Voyage of Discovery in Rural Northern Ontario

Our Indigenous community, the Teme-Augama Anishnabai (the Deep Water by the Shore People), have lived on nDakimenan (Our Land) for thousands of years governed by Natures cosmic framework, Kou-Chee Ma-Nid-Doo (The Great Mystery). Gretchens book provides an insiders perspective on how we, the Teme-Augama Anishnabai, began our journey of decolonization. The Cree Statesmen of the James Bay Watershed, Andy Rickard on the West side and Billy Diamond on the East side, helped us get off the ground. Jim and Gretchens move to Bear Island, Lake Temagami, was essential for us to keep going.

Chief Gary Potts, Teme-Augama Anishnabai

Deep Water Dream is a personal account of a devoted and determined family physician who treated the underprivileged in the smaller communities of northern Ontario. Dr. Gretchen Roedde struggled with personal and humanitarian challenges. However, she accepted that the forces of nature always prevailed over life and death.

Dr. Andr Hurtubise, CCFP, FCFP

Dr. Gretchen Roedde has worked in some of the worlds toughest medical zones. In Deep Water Dream she brings her passion for medical justice to the Indigenous and working-class communities of northern Ontario. Small town, country doctor memoir it aint. This book is raw and real.

Charlie Angus, MP, TimminsJames Bay

In this radical memoir of reconciliation forty five years before reconciliation became a questionable buzzword Gretchen Roedde writes of her education and life work as a doctor in the medically-underserved North. The deep water here flows out of the complex, lifelong relationships Gretchen has with her friends, mentors, patients, and colleagues in the Tema-Augama Anishnabai Nation. In a world of increasingly short thoughts and sharp polarities, here are the long thoughts of long lives, inspired by expansive dreams. The great power and healing here arise directly out of the lands, the waters, and the peoples of Northern Ontario.

Karen Connelly, therapist and author of The Change Room

Copyright Gretchen Roedde, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Cover design: Laura Boyle
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Roedde, Gretchen, author
Deep water dream : a medical voyage of discovery in rural Northern
Ontario / Gretchen Roedde.

Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-4329-8 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4330-4 (PDF).-
ISBN 978-1-4597-4331-1 (EPUB)

1. Roedde, Gretchen. 2. Physicians--Ontario, Northern--Biography.
3. Medical care--Ontario, Northern. 4. Ontario, Northern--Rural conditions.
5. Autobiographies. I. Title.

1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Lan dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de lart dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

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J. Kirk Howard, President

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For Jim, our children Anna and Alec,
and Hayley, Regan, and Etta

Having been asked to read Dr. Gretchen Roeddes book prior to publication and write something for her is an honour and a privilege. As I reflected on her first book, A Doctors Quest, read this one, and pondered our relationship, what came to mind is a quote from Tom King, a well-known Indigenous author. Stories are wonderful things and they are dangerous. Stories assert tremendous control over our lives, informing who we are and how we treat one another as friends, family and citizens. The truth about stories is thats all we are. I believe Gretchens story is captured in this quote.

Not all who read this book will remember these stories the same way she does. Some will celebrate what they see of themselves and some may not. This is Gretchens story to tell, and she does it well. She begins with her decision to go to medical school, describes the challenges of being a doctor, of her work with Treaty Nine, Bear Island, and in small Northern Ontario towns. She describes to us how her life as a doctor imposed on and affected her roles as a wife and a mother. As she weaves the story of her personal life with that of her professional life, we become very aware of her connection to people and her desire for a world where no one is left behind.

My friend has told her story and is sharing it with the world. It is a story of courage, to experience the unknown and to live life to its fullest even when you think you dont have the wherewithal to keep going.

As you read her book you will come to know the woman I know, a woman of great strength and ability. As I work to find words that describe her, I think of empathy, honour, humility, a force of nature, courage.

And I will close by saying Meegwetch to you, Gretchen, for your caring and service to humanity, for coming to my community, for being part of my life, but mostly for being my friend and for our times together.

Victoria Grant, Loon Clan, Teme-Augama Anishnabai Qway (Deep Water Woman), and a member of the Temagami First Nation.

July 2018

TEMAGAMI/TEMISKAMING IS THE ANISHINAABE WORD TEMEGAMING: AT THE PLACE OF DEEP WATER.

This is a hopeful memoir, sharing my voyage of discovery as a mother, wife, and physician in several underserved (Indigenous, rural, Amish) communities in Northern Ontario; but it is also a difficult one, as these people have restricted access to health services that many Canadians take for granted. I am asking you to take this journey with me.