 |
|
|
|
|
  
|
California girl of the North
Shari Dives of Enterprise found a home in the NWTPaul Bickford Northern News Services Published Friday, February 24, 2012
She found that opportunity in Canada. "I was going to be here for one year and go back to university, and life intervened," recalled the Enterprise resident. In fact, she never did return to her home country, except to visit, and now has dual American and Canadian citizenship. Her life in Canada eventually led her to the NWT, where she originally spent three years in Inuvik and later 29 years in Yellowknife. Since 2006, she has lived in Enterprise. "The North is home," she said. In the NWT, she has contributed to society as an adult educator, a civil servant, a foster parent and, most recently, president of the new Enterprise Senior Society. Dives was born in Hanford, a community in the San Joaquin Valley of California. She ended up teaching on Vancouver Island in 1964 after being unable to get a similar job on the West Coast of the United States despite having an education degree. That was because many teachers from Canada were being hired to replace young men being drafted or enlisting for military service in the early days of the Vietnam War. "They were hiring Canadian males not subject to draft," she explained. It was therefore logical to figure there were openings for teachers north of the border. "That's how I ended up in Canada," said Dives, who was 21 at the time. She taught on Vancouver Island in Sidney and then Victoria, and enjoyed the two communities and living on the seacoast. She met her first husband – a member of the Canadian Navy – in Victoria and after they were married he was transferred to Inuvik. That was because their daughter – the first of three children from her first marriage – was born with asthma and needed to live in a dry place, such as Inuvik. "I had never seen snow in my life and got off the airplane in Inuvik on Oct. 21, 1967, in high heels and a skirt," Dives recalled with a laugh. "Thank heaven for the wonderful people of Inuvik." In particular, she said one woman, who spoke very little English, knocked on her door the day after she arrived in Inuvik, gave her a pair of sealskin mukluks and said "Wear," an English word she learned to make the special delivery. "She had measured my footprint in the snow after one of my multiple falls," Dives recalled. Her claim to fame in Inuvik was as one of the NWT's first two adult education teachers in 1967. She taught math, science and sex education, including birth control and family planning when she was eight months pregnant. Dives and her first husband lived in Inuvik until 1970 and then moved to Lethbridge, Alta. It was not until 1977 that she returned north to Yellowknife with her new and still husband Jim Dives. "We just said, 'Let's go north,'" she recalled." I knew there were jobs available in the North." In Yellowknife, she had a number of jobs, but worked the longest – 17 years – with Public Works and Government Services Canada. Her final position was as accommodations manager, ensuring all federal departments in the NWT had office space. Previously, she also worked as a bookkeeper, a school secretary and at a school board office, and she and her husband were also foster parents for 44 children over the years in Yellowknife. While the couple was very active in Yellowknife, when it came time for retirement in 2006, they considered the cost of housing in the capital city and the fact they planned to travel part of the year in their motor home. "We decided we were moving to the south of the lake. The housing is less expensive down here," Dives said, noting it also saves money when driving in and out of the NWT in their motor home. Plus, they wanted to stay in the NWT because of the medical benefits and to stay close to friends. Dives and her husband considered moving to Hay River, but friends in Yellowknife told them they would be more likely to stop and see them in Enterprise than in Hay River, 36 km off Highway 1. "That's why we chose Enterprise," she said. "That's the bottom line." Similar to her life in Yellowknife, Dives, now 68, has been active in Enterprise. For instance, she is a member of the quilters' club and volunteers at the Gateway Jamboree music festival, along with leading the Enterprise Senior Society. Even after all her time in Canada, Dives said she still sometimes calls herself a California girl. However, the North is now her home, she said. "I love the North. I'll never leave."
|
