Volume 6 • 2019 • Issue 8

23 Issue 8 | 2019 | I ssues and P eople The mobile clinic only offers dental service in three seasons. “Winter isn’t the most productive time of year on the islands. There are storms. Power outages. Freezing rain. Snow,” says Walford. “It isn’t just that it makes it harder for me to get to my patients, but my patients have a hard time getting to the bus. They are fighting their own fights when the weather gets harsh.” In the winter, Dr. Walford spends time in Mexico with Robin. In the waters of the Pacific Ocean, he does a swimming race ever year, “which I usually win,” he says. At 73, Dr. Walford says that he doesn’t feel that age affects him much. He rides his bike around Hornby. He attributes his health to a balanced life, and “doing happy dentistry.” Dr. Walford talks about a difficult year when his children were little, and his dental practice wasn’t as established as it would become. “We were paying the mortgage on the house, we couldn’t afford renovations, and money was short,” says Dr. Walford. He had doubts about his decision to practice in a small community. Sometimes when his patients didn’t have money to pay him, he’d receive payment in goods—such as wool—or services— such as knitting a sweater. “I worried that I had made a bad economic choice because I didn’t have a gold chip practice and wasn’t sending my kids to private school.” He’d been trying to build his own version of the good life, but he didn’t know if he’d succeeded. “Now, with the benefit of the perspective of some years,” says Dr. Walford, “I feel rich in all the ways that matter.” He knows many of his patients well. “We laugh a lot, pick up where we left off. Talk about island events and world events. Ü Dr. Peter Walford’s practice, including the Hornby & Denman Dental Bus, is for sale. Contact him at 250-218-9238 (call or text) or email: pwalford@telus.net The extendedWalford family, "rich in all the ways that matter".