Juggling a Petri dish lined with mold in one hand and a vial of saline solution in the other, Dr. George Young attempts to test his second batch of penicillin. The Second World War had just come to an end and while Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin had already made its way to the North American market, doctors who were treating patients in rural communities like Chapleau had very little chance of replenishing already limited penicillin supplies, recalls Young.
The solution to the problem was to develop his own penicillin, Young says.
Young, who was born in 1914 in Chapleau and acted as the town's physician for 51 years, remembers well the era in which penicillin was discovered. While he says he realized the potential of saving lives through the use of penicillin, the challenge was to access the medication.
"Because of the area we lived in, it was harder for me to access penicillin, so I started to grow my own," Young says. "I grew penicillin here in Chapleau for about eight months. It was a thrill to see that it could be done."
Young met the challenges of practising medicine in a small town separated by distance and access to larger centres of the North.
Perhaps it is this isolation from larger centres that has resulted in a community of innovative, creative-thinking residents - many of whom have developed their artistic side to become recognized on a national scale.
Mansel Robinson, a playwright who was born and raised in Chapleau, is just one of many examples of talents born within the community. Robinson, who now resides in Saskatoon, Sask. has written and produced a number of plays throughout Canada, including such titles as Ghost Trains and Spitting Slag.
"A lot of my writing has come from my family's history as a railroading family," Robinson says. "I grew up sitting at the kitchen table listening to these guys tell stories about railroading and talk about the characters in the town and part of that is still with me when I do my writing."
Armand Ruffo, an author and director of the Centre for Aboriginal Education, Research and Culture at Carleton University, published his second book, Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney, in 1997. The highly acclaimed book became the basis for the movie Grey Owl , filmed in Chelsea, Que. in 1999.
In writing the book Grey Owl, a fictional biography of Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, Ruffo combined memories of his own ancestors and oral history passed down through generations of Ojibwa heritage, along with archived journals and documentation from personal interviews to unfold the story of Grey Owl. Ruffo was raised in the Township of Chapleau and spent many summers in Biscotasing where Archie Belaney had lived with Ruffo's great-grandmother's family near the turn of the last century.
He published his first poetry collection, Opening in the Sky, in 1994, followed by a number of widely published stories and essays, as well as plays. His third novel, At Geronimo's Grave, will be published this spring.
