I don't believe that Sarah said this. I read her book, and she's never lived close enough to the Canadian border to have "snuck over".
Well, the first thing to do in cases like this is to see exactly what a person said, and get the rest of the facts lined up first... That's what I did and I cam up with Post #199 ...
You'll see that they did live close enough to Canada. And you'll see that it was before the time of their current health care system that they have in Canada now. And it was basically going to the nearest and easiest to reach medical facility to take care of what needed to be taken care of.
That doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. I mean, why do you want to go on a more difficult journey instead of an easier journey to a medical facility, no matter what country it's in?
At any rate, don't engage in knee-jerk responses, but check out all the details first. :-)
If you noticed, I prefaced my statement with, "I don't believe..."
I hadn't recalled that the Heath family lived in Scagway when she was little. Her time there is little more than a quick footnote in her book.
Not that I had any idea how close Scagway is to Canada, either, but having seen later comments on the thread, I see that the Canadian border (and modern hospitals) were closer to their family at that time, than Juneau.
I do recall from the book, Sarah saying that to this day, travel to Juneau is difficult, so the capitol is somewhat isolated from the rest of Alaska.
It's also emerged that when Sarah was a small child, Canada didn't have a fully nationalized health care system. Apparently, lots of Alaskans in Scagway and surrounding areas used the Canadian hospitals in that time.
At any rate, don't engage in knee-jerk responses, but check out all the details first.
And you shouldn't engage in public scolding of people you don't even know. I'm fine with friendly suggestions.