The ninth of fifteen children in a small town in Maharashtra, India, Chandrakant Shah managed to attend medical school through diligent study, sometimes under an oil lamp. Like many others of his age, he went abroad for better opportunities, finally arriving in Canada, where he joined the School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. In Canada he was immediately struck by the inequities in health and social services for the poor and the Aboriginal populations. Through the University of Toronto he became involved with the Sioux Lookout Zone Program in Northwestern Ontario by volunteering his pediatric services to the remote and isolated First Nations communities. This sparsely populated region became his second home for a number of years. Throughout his professorship at the university, he worked tirelessly to draw attention to existing inequalities and to rectify them. In addition, he made important contributions to the teaching of public health in Canada and wrote the first comprehensive textbook on the subject that is now in its sixth edition. He retired in 2001 and was invited to work as a primary care physician at Anishnawbe Health Toronto (AHT), an Aboriginal community health center.