By paNOW

PAGC Healing Lodge: 20 years later

Jun 14, 2017 | 3:00 PM

For almost 20 years, a healing lodge outside Prince Albert has worked with Indigenous men during some the darkest years of their lives.

Sept. 8 marks the double-decade anniversary of the Prince Albert Grand Council’s spiritual healing lodge. The lodge has served as a rehabilitation centre for men serving anything between day parole and the last two years of a sentence.

The healing lodge is located just east of the city, a short distance from Highway 55. The grounds include six cabins, summer and winter sweat lodges, a talking circle room and an administration room.

Healing lodges are misperceived in the public eye as a vacation home for inmates, a point acting director Nicole Crookedneck disputes.

“If you speak to the guys we house here, they say it’s difficult. It’s a harder time doing time at a healing lodge,” Crookedneck said. “We dig down deep into their past, bring up those childhood issues that lead them to where they were, or where they are.”

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She said in a prison, inmates have access to cultural ceremonies but not to the extent of the services offered at the healing lodge. She said the goal is to return the men back to their roots through smudges, sweats, Sundance, and naming ceremonies among other activities.

Along with the cultural component, Crookedneck said the healing lodge also equally promotes life skill building and education.

“That’s one of the main points we want to get across to [relatives], if you don’t have the education, we’ll help you in getting the education,” Crookedneck said. “If you need work, we’ll assist you in getting work, we’re not going to hold your hand and take you to a place to apply.”

For PAGC Grand Chief Ron Michel, the education and life skill building aspects of the healing lodge is an equally important as the spiritual side of the lodge.

“It really helps to believe in yourself, and believe in your spirit inside of you,” Michel said.

The Grand Chief said the spiritual healing lodge is currently the only one operated by the PAGC, but he has been working with staff from the federal government to begin doing some upgrading to the structures and the educational programming offered.

“I’m really, really glad we’re doing something for our people inside [the penitentiary], inside the system, and hopefully we’ll get more of those,” Michel said.

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas