Volume 9 • 2022 • Issue 3

CDA President Profile We decided that we wanted to visit every national park and national park reserve in Canada. So far, we’ve been to 38 out of 48. Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve among the Queen Charlotte Islands in B.C. Always a dentist, flossing in a tent in a national park Ivvavik National Park in Yukon extraordinary reconstruction and prosthetics for patients,” says Dr. Tomkins. “It was very intense being in practice together. But it also helped to have an effective short-hand and be able to really understand the intellectual and emotional challenges of each other’s work.” The couple had a rule that neither could talk about dentistry after dinner. “Otherwise, it would become all consuming,” she says. In 2014, they sold their practice but Dr. Tomkins continued to work as an associate until 2019. Environmental Sustainability In the early 1990s, the couple travelled to New Zealand to experience the natural wonders of the Southern Hemisphere. “We realized that the topography, and the culture to some extent, were similar to Canada,” says Dr. Tomkins. “We’d travelled all this way, but we hadn’t really explored our own nation.” Their first trip to a national reserve in Canada was a week-long kayaking trip in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve among the Queen Charlotte Islands in B.C. “Then we decided that we wanted to visit every national park and national park reserve in Canada,” she says. “So far, we’ve been to 38 out of 48.” On one memorable parks trip, they flew to Iqaluit, Nunavut, then travelled to Resolute on the Northwest Passage. From there, a Twin Otter airplane took them three hours north, where they began a 14-day hike through Quttinirpaaq National Park backpacking with all their supplies. “We were up close to the 88th parallel, so far north that Compass North was south and west of us,” she says. The land was vast, beautiful and precious. Her familiarity with the North and the effects of climate change in the region were eye opening for Dr. Tomkins. “Our environment is what sustains us,” she says. “A profession in service of the health and the welfare of human beings must include care for the natural environment on which we all depend.” 31 Issue 3 | 2022 |