HEALING AND TRUTH: Crow Shield Lodge fosters ‘critical’ connections
A beautiful thing.
That’s how organizers of the Crow Shield Lodge’s first-ever Elder’s and Youth Gathering described the daylong event in June 2023.
Traditional Indigenous food, craft-making and sweat-lodge ceremonies filled the day at Crow Shield Lodge’s property next to the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum.
Perhaps most memorable for everyone who participated were the connections made among Elders, youth, and the land itself.
“One of the most poignant things of the day was just the conversation – listening to people be together on the land and just connecting,” said Crow Shield Lodge staff person Sue Nally, who handles operations and special events. “Oftentimes, youth don’t have access to Elders in the way we live these days. So just seeing the conversations between Elders who have never met, and Elders and youth, and youth and youth, it just really felt like community time.”
Founded by Clarence Cachagee, Crow Shield Lodge is an Indigenous-led organization consisting of four pillars: Education, Healing, Reconciliation, and Land Stewardship.
Crow Shield has for the past few years been offering a variety of programming at its two physical sites – on Pfenning’s Organic Farm in New Hamburg and the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum on Huron Rd. in Kitchener.
Indigenous people, many of whom live in urban areas and don’t typically have access to “on-the-land” experiences including sweat lodges, are invited to the lodge to “re-learn and reconnect” with cultural traditions.
“A lot of people have been disconnected due to colonialism, residential schools, just the way the world is right now. This is an opportunity to re-learn and reconnect with those traditional ways. They could include ceremonies, but they could also include something like drum-making… all that reconnection to culture is important. It’s about providing a space for… full-moon ceremonies, drum-making ceremonies.”
Non-Indigenous folks – often organizations, businesses, churches and individual groups – have been coming out to “learn either about actionable allyship or want to learn about the history, the truth part about Truth and Reconciliation.”
The work at Crow Shield varies from group to group.
“The feedback has been wonderful. And truthful,” Nally said. “What we’re finding is that the needs for both these groupings are just so much more than we anticipated and so much more than anybody realized.”
The Elder’s and Youth Gathering was specifically for Indigenous people in the local area, providing the 6 Elders in attendance an opportunity to pass on teachings to a younger generation. There were crafting opportunities such as feather-wrapping and dreamcatcher-making, a junior powwow drumming group and an introductory sweat ceremony – referred to by some as a purification or spiritual ceremony.
“Those kids had never sweated. It was such a beautiful experience,” Nally said. “You hear them laughing – just to be there for that first time for them was just incredible.”
She added of the Elders’ and Youth Gathering: “It’s critical that these teachings are passed along. Those are important for the culture to grow and thrive. It’s also that connection, that human-to-human relationship. It’s so important. And for the Elders, as they’re moving into that last stage in life, to see that hope and to see the future and to be able to pass along their knowledge, that gives them a new place as they start on that next journey.”
The gathering was made possible with help from Waterloo Region Community Foundation (WRCF)’s Racial Equity Fund. The fund is dedicated to supporting meaningful, positive action that advances the work of organizations serving people in Waterloo Region who are Indigenous, Black and people of colour. Funds distributed are intended to assist those most impacted by the ongoing and systematic racial disparities that exist in our community.
“They came out as staff and chose to learn and sit in a circle with us,” Nally said of WRCF. “It’s not just a funder and fundee. It’s a relationship. They get who we are.”
As to the path ahead for Crow Shield Lodge and those accessing the various programs, it’s a slow and steady process, Nally said, and there shouldn’t be timelines attached.
“What we’re finding is there’s still a hesitancy for people to come out sometimes. Either it’s that they don’t know us, or just their hesitancy stemming from so much trauma. Elders who lived through so many horrors for the past 10 decades – sometimes reconnecting is challenging,” she said. “We’re hoping if we keep offering this safe space and keep creating a gentle pathway (people will come.)”
The land on which the Crow Shield Lodge operates is situated on the lands traditionally used by the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Anishinaabe, Chonnonton, and Haudenosaunee peoples.
For more information on Crow Shield Lodge and the programs they offer, visit crowshieldlodge.com.
To learn more about WRCF’s Racial Equity Fund, go to wrcf.ca/racialequity.
