Last July, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed the first ever woman as Consul General to New York. His choice was an alumnus of CTV, Pamela Wallin.

"I picked up the phone and it turned out to be the Prime Minister's Office... And he came on and said, 'Pamela, I have a question for you... How would you like to be our Consul General in New York?' The poor man could not finish his sentence before I said yes."

And with those words, came an end to a mighty media career that included a stint as CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, the first woman ever to hold the job; host of Canada A.M.; national anchor on both CTV and CBC and host of her own talk show.

But Pamela Wallin as a diplomat may beg a few questions. After having spent all those years being aggressive with decision makers in Ottawa, she now represents them. But she doesn't see her new position as a contradiction.

"The basic premise of journalism is to put information in people's hands so that they can make smarter decisions... So I am just dealing with a different constituency in the sense of I need to put information in people's minds here in New York... I don't feel like I've made some switch or that I've somehow become a partisan."

She grew up in Wadena, Saskatchewan and now she lives in a $12 million flat in midtown Manhattan.

"I think that's a bit excessive but New York real estate is pretty expensive. The government of Canada bought it when it was less than $150,000," says Pamela.

So what exactly is a Consul General? It's a diplomat without the responsibility for heavy-duty politics. The embassy in Washington takes care of that.

The Consul General's job is to make sure that people notice Canada and notice it in the right way. Part of her job is to throw fabulous parties in midtown Manhattan with the most interesting people in the world, and let the attendees know that a lot of those people are Canadians.

"It's so easy to do that with all of the talent that exists in Canada... So you have to bring [Americans] in and expose them to that. Then in the course of conversation say, 'Did you know this is Canadian?' So you look at those excuses and those reasons to bring people in."

If anyone is in a position to say how Pamela is doing, it's former Prime Minister Kim Campbell, who two years ago wrapped up her stint as the Canadian consul general in Los Angeles.

"I used to say that most of my job was going out and explaining to Americans that a Canadian was not just an unarmed American with health insurance. It's a totally different country," says Campbell.

She has a few pieces of advice for the diplomatic rookie.

"Wear comfortable shoes; write your own speeches, and preferably don't write them just give them; and a sense of humour."

Aside from the glitter and glamour, some of Pamela's top priorities are politics and business.

Perhaps the best way to describe her job is 'Ambassador to Wall Street.' New York is where America and the world, does business. That means being a familiar face around the New York Stock Exchange, even if it's just to say hello.

Pamela Wallin's office on 6th Avenue, right across from Radio City Music Hall and just blocks from Broadway. In addition to business and politics, New York is also the entertainment capital of the world. It's a fact that's not lost on her.

"With the exception of Wadena, Saskatchewan, [New York is] the centre of the universe - business, culture, art, you know, you name it. It's the idea capital of the world."

Pamela says that the new job doesn't leave her much personal time. What little she has, she uses to explore her new city. On those walks that Pamela reflects on what she says is a fundamental change in her self, brought on by the new job, the new city and a post 911 world.

"It's about being a little bit more sensitive to other peoples' state of mind and you may not know all the things that are going on in their heads."

Although she's busy raising Canada's profile in New York, her thoughts are never far from home. Her parents, Bill and Leone Wallin still live in Wadena Saskatchewan, thousands of kilometres away.

"They're honest. They're real. They're good and they've given me good advice."

As a self-confessed workaholic and insomniac who's always on the go, Pamela has fit right into this flurry of activity. But there's been a cost for that lifestyle.

"I have no regrets so I don't see them as sacrifices. But I certainly made some decisions that were atypical."

But there was something that not only changed Pamela's life, it nearly ended it.

She noticed blood in her stool. At first she dismissed it, but her father, a retired X-ray technician, knew better. A colonoscopy confirmed his suspicions.

"I don't know how long my tumour had been growing or the stage. But it was ready. I was on the cusp of something more serious. If I had waited, I don't know the outcome, but it wouldn't have been good," says Pamela.

The doctors told her that the bleeding ulcer on the tumour gave her a sign there was something wrong. If there hadn't been blood in her stool, doctors wouldn't have known she had colon cancer until she died.

Following her scare with cancer, Pamela is not wasting any time.

"New opportunities come. When the Prime Minister phones and says, "Do you want to go be the Consul General?', it's a lot easier to say, 'Yeah, I do. Life's short. Why not'?"

Pamela Wallin's posting is for at least four years, time to live life to the fullest as Canada's Consul Gereral in New York. In the meantime, she's not even looking at what's next for her on the horizon.

"It's like taking pictures. You know when you go to the mountain and you stand there, you take a picture, then the flash didn't work, then you have to rewind it and then you have to put more film in. Meanwhile, you've stopped looking at the mountain because you've spent all this time on the busy work. So I don't take pictures when I'm on holidays and I don't make plans when I'm in the middle of one project, about what the next one will be... I don't want to miss what I'm doing. It's just too much fun."