One of North America’s oldest and most easterly cities, St. John’s lies on the Atlantic coast of the island of Newfoundland. In 1975, it hosted its first national dental convention. “People still talk about it, those who can remember,” says Anthony “Tony” Patey, the longserving executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Dental Association (NLDA) who retired in 2022. The 1975 Convention The John C. Perlin Arts and Culture Centre, which opened its doors in 1967 and is located next to Memorial University, was the main hub of the convention and included clinical tables, a restaurant and an art gallery. Dining facilities were at Paton College, a university residence completed in 1968, which featured “hot meals, three times a day, at very reasonable prices,” according to promotional material for the convention. The First National Convention in Newfoundland and Labrador Fifty years ago, St. John’s welcomed dentists from across Canada. This August, the city will once again play host to the National Oral Health Convention. The convention committee invited attendees to experience “rugged, beautiful, rich in history” Newfoundland, whose “place names boast a dozen different languages, silent testimony of people who came and left, on bays and island and headland, record of their faiths and memories of their far away homes.” “Back then, there weren’t many hotels in town, so they had to put up some attendees in the residences of Memorial Dentists and their families boarded a cruise ship in Montreal, sailed east along the St. Lawrence River and docked in St. John’s for the duration of the convention. 22 | 2025 | Issue 2
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