Fedoruk, Hon. Sylvia

Year Inducted / Année Intronisé:

1986

Province / Province:

Saskatchewan

Category / Catégorie:

Builder, President

Biography / Biographie:

Born in Canora, Saskatchewan, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, Annie Romaniuk and Theodore Fedoruk. Fedoruk attended a one room schoolhouse in Wroxton north east of the city of Yorkton. Her father was her teacher.

During World War II, the family relocated to Ontario where her parents took war factory work. In 1946, she completed her studies at Walkerville Collegiate in Windsor Ontario, at the top of her class and was awarded the Ernest J. Creed Memorial Medal and an entrance scholarship to attend University. But the family chose to return to Saskatchewan where Sylvia entered the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon in the fall of 1946.

She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics, at the University of Saskatchewan, in 1949 and was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal. Fedoruk completed her M.A. in physics in 1951.

Fedoruk was recruited by Dr. Harold E. Johns to be the radiation physicist at Saskatoon Cancer Clinic. She became the chief medical physicist at the Saskatoon Cancer Clinic and director of physics services at the Saskatchewan Cancer Clinic. She was a professor of oncology and associate member in physics at the University of Saskatchewan. She was involved in the development of the world’s first cobalt-60 unit and one of the first nuclear medicine scanning machines.

She was the first woman member of the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada.

From 1986 to 1989 she was chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan. She was the first female to fill this position at the University of Saskatchewan.

She is a past president (1971 to 1972) of the Canadian Ladies Curling Association. In 1986, she was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame, as a builder, and was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. In 1961, she played in the very first Diamond ‘D’ Championships for team Saskatchewan as the third for Joyce McKee. Saskatchewan won the tournament.

In 1987, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

From 1988 to 1994, she was Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan.

In the 1990s, the City of Saskatoon named a new road Fedoruk Road in her honour. Fedoruk Road runs north of the community of Silverspring, which honours noted Saskatchewan sports figures in its street names. Along with the future Evergreen subdivision, Fedoruk Road in the future is expected to evolve into one of the major arterial roadways in the northeast sector of the city. As of 2015, Fedoruk Road is split in two parts. The first phase goes from Konihowski Road in Silverspring to Zary Road in Evergreen, while the second phase goes from Evergreen Boulevard to McOrmond Drive.

On October 3, 2012 the name of the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) was changed to the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation in honor of the pioneering work she did in the treatment of cancer using cobalt-60 radiation therapy in the 1950s.

In 2009, she was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Hon. Sylvia Fedoruk of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was inducted into the Curling Hall of Fame in 1986 as a Canadian Ladies Curling Association past president.