Blaine Deutscher’s motto for living his life: "I don’t want blindness to be the reason I don’t do something”. This matches up with the philosophy of the Canadian Federation of the Blind and National Federation of the Blind: “living the life you want”.

This week on Outlook, we speak with Blaine from Alberta about how he discovered CFB/NFB and related philosophy, the level of assistance he received as a student who was blind, and route learning (which many Canadians learned orientation and mobility were taught) vs structure discovery method of independent travel for the blind.

From navigating transportation with a guide dog to chopping down a tree to taking his son’s temperature, a parent simply taking care of their sick child, he wants to do it all and not have his blindness rule his every move and there are ways, other blind people who are leading others along the path (blind leading the blind) but it’s true. How else do we learn how it might have been for another blind person, for the tips and tricks a new parent who is blind can learn from other parents who are blind too, to use the example Blaine gives in this episode.

And finally, us two, not athletic in the least, got to learn how in the world blind hockey is played. (More to come on the subject in future shows.) Let this Canadian, who loves the sport like millions of other Canadians, explain it all and even provide an audio demonstration of what the adaptive puck sounds like.