Meet Candace Taylor — Our July Sheepdog of the Month

Candace Taylor - Registered Nurse, Marathon Runner

Some people spend years figuring out what they're meant to do. Candace Taylor knew at 10, watching her mom walk across a nursing graduation stage. Years later, there's still no plan B and there never needed to be.

Candace holds a BSc in Nursing from McMaster and a Masters in Disaster Healthcare from the University of South Wales. She's been in the Foothills Medical Centre ICU — Southern Alberta's Level 1 trauma centre — since 2014, with casual shifts at Canmore General's ER on the side. Her passion is neurotrauma. Her career has taken her from Hamilton's neurosurgery unit to Cairns, Australia, and eventually to the Bow Valley mountains she now calls home.

When COVID hit and the ICU became almost unrecognizable — two patients per room built for one, makeshift curtains rigged from IV poles and bedsheets, loss after loss with barely a breath in between. COVID tested every healthcare worker in ways most of us can't imagine. Candace will tell you it was the hardest chapter of her career and the experience only deepened her commitment to the patients and families who need her most.

What keeps her there? The 5 percenters. The patients who defy every odd. A young man with a traumatic brain injury recently walked back into her ICU after recovering and returning back to his normal life. She got to talk to him this time, not just care for him. "That's a big reason I do what I do," she says. "Thank you for coming to visit. I needed that more than you know."

Some of the most meaningful letters she's ever received came from families whose loved ones didn't make it — who simply wanted her to know she was there when it mattered most. That's what looking out for your flock actually looks like.

Off the clock, Candace has run marathons in Paris, New York, and Amsterdam, raising $6,000 USD for pancreatic cancer research — inspired by her mom, her original nursing hero, who was diagnosed in 2021 and is still here, still thriving in 2026. She watches Jeopardy every night. Her beer order is "anything you can't see through (Belgians, Stouts, Wheats, Hazies) and a fun fact, she can't drive a stick. Every time she tries to learn, she pulls over and runs away. ;)

Candace, thank you for showing up — in the ICU, in our community, and in our taproom. We're proud to call you one of our own.

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