SYDNEY, N.S. — 

At 70, Louise Gillis is more active than many people half her age.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, she curls in a house league at the Sydney Curling Club. She also volunteers with the Special Olympics, enjoys hiking, and paddles during the summer as a member of the Sydney Harbour Dragon Boat Club.

And she does all this despite the fact she is almost totally blind
 

There is life after vision loss,” said Gillis, who as the longtime national president of the Canadian Council of the Blind also busily advocates for the more than 800,000 Canadians who are blind, including an estimated 1,000-1,2000 people in Cape Breton. “We’re active people. We are able. We’re showing our abilities, not our disabilities.”

However, that’s not to say it’s easy.

While the federal government is taking steps to break down barriers to people with disabilities (the proposed Accessible Canada Act is currently making its way through the Senate), Gillis said people typically think about wheelchairs, not vision loss, when it comes to accessibility issues.

“Everybody overlooks it. I shouldn’t say everybody — 90 per cent of people will overlook it. Even the people who are in the building trades and infrastructure for the municipalities and all of that, they are only thinking of wheelchair (curb) cuts in sidewalks and that sort of thing. But, depending on how that wheelchair cut is made in that sidewalk, it could be very dangerous because if it’s a circular thing and somebody totally blind is walking with a cane and feels the edge of it, could walk right out into the middle of the intersection rather than to the crosswalk.”

Sidewalks are also a problem, particularly in the winter.
 

“Many sidewalks are not cleared very well when we get storms, so you can’t walk — you’re walking in the middle of the street,” she said. “You’re taking your life in your hands. You see people staying in the house much more because of that.”

In many cases, all that’s is required are more tactile signs so blind people can tell by touch which elevator button to press and whether a public washroom is for men or women.
Source: https://www.trurodaily.com/news/regional/cane-and-able-blindness-doesnt-stop-sydney-senior-from-living-active-life-279921/