With a practice embracing 20,000 square miles of Quebec's rugged northland, 54 year-old Dr. Paul Rivard, of Clova, is physician, friend and advisor to 6,000 lumbermen and Indians living in the snow-packed forests of the Abitibi region. Though a great deal of his routine medical work is carried on in the well-equipped 12-bed hospital at Clova, Dr. Rivard is happiest when ranging his far flung bailiwick. He travels by rail, snowmobile, Norseman aircraft, snowshoe and dogsled to bring modern medicine to snowbound logging camps or lonely Indian hamlets. Injured lumbermen, ailing white or Indian children, and mothers in labour are among the patients of this tough, skilled physician who has often travelled 350 miles to reach someone in need of medical aid.