Northern Exposure of the Day

"Canada needs to dismantle its public health care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit." -- Sarah Palin on November 24, 2009.

Despite comments like the one above, Palin relayed the following story during a speech in Calgary on Saturday night: "My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not -- this was in the '60s -- we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse. And I think, isn't that kind of ironic now? Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada."

Ironic indeed. While it is obvious that Skagway is a very small town, I am slightly confused why Palin's family, despite her brother suffering from a burn, had to travel the approximate 109 miles to Whitehorse for medical treatment. This is especially due to the fact that Skagway is only eighteen miles from Haines, AK. And while Haines is not a major city either, its population in 1970 (one year after Palin and her family left Skagway) was close to 1,100. Are you telling me that there wasn't any medical treatment available between those two towns? But that's neither here nor there. What is disconcerting is that Palin seems to continue her practice of altering her stories and background to fit her audience. In May 2007, "The Skagway News" reported a different tale: "Her brother burned his foot badly jumping through a fire and her mother had to take him down to Juneau on the ferry to the hospital." And in case you were wondering, Palin only has one brother and Juneau is approximately ninety-six miles from Skagway.