Biography – Larry Patriquin

Larry Patriquin was born in 1961 at St. Anne Hospital, Arichat, Isle Madame, Nova Scotia. He grew up in nearby Louisdale, Cape Breton Island, NS.

St. Anne Hospital in 1959, a seemingly inauspicious place to enter the world. A former “Bishop’s Palace,” completed in 1853, it became a hospital after the Second World War. About 2,500 babies were delivered within its walls in the decades after 1946. The building currently houses a number of offices. (Photo courtesy of the Isle Madame Historical Society.) — St. Anne Hospital in 1959, a seemingly inauspicious place to enter the world. A former “Bishop’s Palace,” completed in 1853, it became a hospital after the Second World War. About 2,500 babies were delivered within its walls in the decades after 1946. The building currently houses a number of offices.
*(Photo courtesy of the Isle Madame Historical Society.)*

He graduated from Isle Madame District High School in 1980. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in political science from St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, in 1980; a Master of Arts in public administration from Carleton University, Ottawa, in 1984; and a PhD in social and political thought from York University, Toronto, in 1996.

Since 1998, he has taught in what is now the Department of Social Welfare and Social Development at Nipissing University, a primarily undergraduate, public liberal arts institution. It is located in northern Ontario in the territory of the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850, on the Nipissing First Nation Traditional Territory and the traditional territory of the Anishnabek.

Young Larry Patriquin — *Taken from Grade 3 class photo. Had not yet learned the art of matching garments.*

At Nipissing, he is mainly responsible for the two third-year required courses in his program: “Social and Economic Justice” and “History of Social Welfare.” His teaching and research are interdisciplinary in nature, incorporating insights from politics, economics, sociology, and history, amongst others.

Picture of Larry Patriquin writing at home at his paternal grandmother’s kitchen table, with the chair and typewriter used by his father, who worked as a clerk for Canadian National Railways from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. (Typewriter appears for effect only; author knows how to use computers.) — Writing at home at his paternal grandmother’s kitchen table, with the chair and typewriter used by his father, who worked as a clerk for Canadian National Railways from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. (Typewriter appears for effect only; author knows how to use computers.)

Larry lives in downtown North Bay, Ontario. He has no children, pets, or plants (living or plastic), though he is partial to the chipmunk that has set up shop beneath his backyard shed.

He has embraced the northern lifestyle, and over the Winter 2018-19 achieved a personal-best, cross-country skiing 1,115 kilometres, slightly more than the driving distance from Paris to Berlin. He especially enjoys North Bay Nordic’s beautiful 18-kilometre Green Trail, which emphatically corroborates the well-documented health benefits of trees, snow, and wolf tracks.