At the Camsell Hospital, where he first met Indians and Inuit from northern Canada, he made every effort to learn their ways and to study the diseases and ailments that required their evacuation to the south. Two-thirds of the 400 beds were filled with tuberculosis patients of all ages, including children with tuberculous meningitis. Otto Schaefer noted their loneliness away from home and learned from them about other diseases that ran rampant in northern communities. After three months, he felt his orientation to the North was complete. In January 1953, he got the call to go to Aklavik in the Mackenzie Delta. Initially called shik shik (little squirrel) for his gait, he would later be known affectionately as luttaakuluk (dear little doctor). At Aklavik, he was required to do the major surgery at the Anglican and Roman Catholic hospitals as well as to travel by dog team and canoe to the outlying settlements and camps. He continued to absorb as much as he could from the Inuvialuit and Gwich'in, including their wisdom and resourceful practices such as using spruce gum applied to wounds. There also, the Schaefers' son Lothar was born. After two years, Otto and Didi, his staunch supporter, were posted to Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, where they would spend two years. Helped by an elder, Etuangat, who insisted on using Inuktitut, Schaefer learned much about the Inuit from their traditional remedies (whether successful or not) and from the way Etuangat taught his own son. The two men traveled by dog team to the settlements and camps of Baffin Island, sometimes in blizzard conditions. Hospital work and medical examinations were part of the routine. Schaefer learned the Inuktitut language, ate raw frozen caribou meat, operated by the light of a seal-oil lamp, and developed a genuine friendship and rapport with the Inuit. The Schaefer family, increased by a daughter Taoya, enjoyed the beautiful country, the music, and the celebrations. In 1974, Otto chaired the Third International Symposium on Circumpolar Health, which he chose to place in Yellowknife, so that Northerners could be involved. Recognized as an international authority on the health of circumpolar dwellers, Otto received many honours and awards. In 1976, Governor General Jules Léger pinned the Order of Canada on the lapel of Otto's borrowed suit. In 1981, his work was recognized with the opening of the Dr. Otto Schaefer Health Resource Centre of the Department of Health, Government of the Northwest Territories, in Yellowknife. That same year, Otto was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Manitoba. In 1987, he was awarded the Jack Hildes Medal, named after his long-time collaborator and friend.