Sea Change: Nursing in Bella Bella, 1901-1925

In the early 1900s, the Heiltsuk village of Bella Bella (Wáglísla) in Northwest British Columbia boasted a new Methodist mission hospital and a small Training School for Nurses. This study explores the largely unknown history of missionary nursing in Bella Bella between 1901 and 1925, built around the private documents of Doris Nichols, who began her nursing training there in 1921. This study critically examines the experiences of early nurse missionaries—students and graduates —who lived, learned, worked, and worshiped as a part of the Methodist medical mission in Bella Bella and to the surrounding area. As a social history, this study reflects on those experiences through the lenses of gender, age, class, race, region, and religion. This exploration concludes that Doris Nichols’ rare experience was interconnected with—and an extension of—the profound changes that occurred for the Heiltsuk, the Methodist missions, nursing education, and Doris herself.