Clotilda Yakimchuk was a woman of many firsts.

She was one of Nova Scotia's first Black nurses.

She was the first Black person to graduate from the Nova Scotia Hospital School of Nursing.

And in 1988, she became the first Black person to be elected president of the Registered Nurses Association of Nova Scotia, now called the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia.

Selah Best Bourgeois, a nurse who grew up just down the street from Clotilda, will remember her not just for her accomplishments, but for the impact she had in her neighbourhood of Whitney Pier.