From the hollow of an abalone shell, sweet-smelling smoke curls skyward from smoldering sage, tobacco, cedar, and sweetgrass – four sacred medicines in Indigenous healing ceremonies. An Algonquin Elder gently brushes the braiding smoke with her hands and offers it to the four directions in a spiritually cleansing practice known as smudging.
“It’s very important (to understand) when you’re highly stressed that you need this. You need the garden,” says Annie Smith St-Georges, a prominent Elder and traditional healer who was raised on the Kitigan Zibi Anishinābeg reserve near Maniwaki, Quebec, and has helped guide the Faculty of Medicine’s Indigenous Program since its beginnings.
Now, with the gift of various traditional medicines from the home garden she cultivates with her Métis husband, Robert, an Indigenous Garden is opening on the campus of the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine. Fittingly, the St-Georges will be on hand to dedicate this purpose-built garden during this year’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Just outside the Faculty’s Roger Guindon Hall (RGN), the green space comprised of raised beds with plants ranging from spruce and cedar to mint and sweetgrass will serve many purposes.
It’s a living classroom. It’s a place for reflection and dialogue. It will provide community healing and traditional medicines for spiritual practices by Elders and Knowledge Keepers. It’s a teaching tool that can help combine centuries-old traditional knowledge with modern science.
And, as Indigenous wisdom counsels, it will serve as a reminder for everyone to “walk in a good way” on our shared planet.
Engagement and reconciliation
Hailey Land, a Métis student at the Faculty of Medicine who helped advance plans for the garden as the former president of the Indigenous Health Interest Group and a representative for the Indigenous Program EDI Committee, says it will also be a space for practicing reconciliation.
On a personal level, Land says the new garden represents a “meaningful step” toward integrating Indigenous knowledge and practices into an institutional space that in previous decades was disconnected from these perspectives. (On Sept. 18, , the Canadian Medical Association issued a formal apology for the harms the medical profession has caused First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. The plants provided by the St-Georges helped with the healing process that day at uOttawa.)
“It’s not just about creating a beautiful space, but about actively working toward reconciliation and a more inclusive approach to learning and practice,” says Land, a registered nurse whose future goals include becoming a dermatologist who serves rural and remote Indigenous communities.
“It was important to me to help create a symbol that offers a space for this education, reflection, connection, and fosters a greater understanding of Indigenous traditions and their contributions to health and wellbeing.”
Tanya Lalonde, former coordinator of the Faculty’s Indigenous Program who is now an adviser with uOttawa’s Mashkawazìwogamig Indigenous Resource Centre, added that organizers including the Aesculapian Society wanted the garden to be a welcoming place for Indigenous students.
“It was important for us to have a place where Indigenous students could see themselves and their culture reflected,” says Lalonde, a Métis-Cree woman who did a lot of the heavy lifting to ensure the plans became a reality.
“This garden is truly a labour of love and I am so proud to be a part of it,” Lalonde says. “Knowing it will always be here as a part of the Faculty of Medicine gives me great joy and knowing it will be used to teach future generations is such a great legacy to be a part of.”
Learning from Nature
Annie Smith St-Georges says that respect for the Earth’s plants and knowledge of Indigenous healing practices can lead to greater cultural competence and sensitivity by clinicians and researchers. It can, she says, encourage medical professionals to “think outside the box” when it comes to providing compassionate and culturally informed care.
She also hopes the garden will help ease day-to-day stress of uOttawa’s medical school students and trainees.
“Medical students – and I know in the medical field – it’s just go, go, go, go, go. In school, it’s go, go, go, go, go. Take time. Take the time and go to the garden and reflect,” says Smith St-Georges, whose life and career includes founding a health centre aimed at integrating Indigenous knowledge with medical science and, alongside her husband, opening and closing Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
All Faculty community members can benefit if they are open to what the garden can teach them, according to Smith St-Georges. She says that ultra-busy medical professionals will benefit if they take the time to tap into the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of healing in all its forms.
“The doctors have to understand that they’ve got to take care of themselves, too. They’re human, they’ve got feelings. And they’re going to have feelings when they’re going to be practicing. And they’ve got to have the care, the love, the compassion, the trust, and to believe also in themselves,” she says.
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