New doctor adjusts to life in Mineral County

SUPERIOR – A family practitioner and her family who moved to the area seven months ago are slowly but surely adjusting to life in rural Montana after spending the last few years in a place about as opposite from Mineral County as can be.

Dr. Erika Parker, with her husband and two young children, moved to the area to accept a family medicine position at the clinic in Superior. She said she has been practicing medicine for nearly a decade and while she doesn’t necessarily bring new services to the community, she is taking some of the workload off the existing family medicine practitioners in the area.

For the Parkers, relocating to Mineral County didn’t just involve loading up a U-Haul truck, packing their things and driving from some other location in the U.S. Parker and her family moved to rural Montana from a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean known as Guam.

Guam is an unincorporated U.S. territory and is the largest of the Mariana Island chain that stretches north of Papua New Guinea and south of the Phillipines. Known for its sandy beaches and coral reefs, of which Montana has none, Guam is a popular tourist attraction and serves as a naval base for the United States Armed Forces.

The island was briefly held by Japanese forces during the second World War but was retaken by U.S. forces after a two-and-a-half year occupation. Ever since, the island has been considered a strategically critical location for American Armed Forces.

Parker said, while the adjustment to such a different environment is still ongoing, she and her family are starting to feel at home even if the nearest beach is a few hundred miles away. Due to the timing of the move, she said the primary shocks to their systems were not cultural but weather related.

“We moved here in the middle of January,” Parker said. “So we went from a steady 80 degrees year-round to Montana in winter. That was a shock. Guam is a tropical climate so that took some getting used to.”

As far as culture shock, the transition has been a little smoother for Parker and her family. One reason for that is the highly westernized nature of Guam. The island has been a part of the U.S. in one respect or another for over a hundred years after the Spanish surrendered the island in 1898 after their defeat in the Spanish-American War.

And with the heavy U.S. military presence on the island, Parker said there are Americans everywhere on the island. But that doesn’t mean the indigenous culture has completely dissolved according to her.

“It’s an interesting blend,” Parker said. “It is heavily westernized and militarized but there is also a very strong indigenous culture as well. There is a lot of Asian influence there because it is a tourist destination. There are a lot of cultures blended together so it’s a very neat place in a lot of ways. It’s a beautiful place with a very unique culture.”

Parker said another aspect of Mineral County that has made the transition from island paradise to rural Montana easier on them has been a combination of things. From hospitable faces to a different type of natural beauty, she said she and her family are expecting to eventually feel right at home here, even if there is very little snorkeling or scuba diving in the region.

“We’ve really enjoyed the area so far,” Parker said. “Everyone is really friendly. It’s been an adjustment and that takes time but it is a really beautiful area for sure.”